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THE COMPLETE POEMS 

OF 

EMILY DICKINSON 















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CtpY <sL. 


Copyright, 1890, 1891, 1896, 

By Roberts Brothers. 

Copyright, 1914, 1918, 1919, 1924 , 
By Martha Dickinson Bianchi. 

All Rights Reserved 

Published July, 1924 


Printed in the United States of America 





INTRODUCTION 


The poems of Emily Dickinson, published in a series of 
three volumes at various intervals after her death in 1886, 
and in a volume entitled “ The Single Hound ”, published 
in 1914, with the addition of a few before omitted, are 
here collected in affinal complete edition. 

In them and in her “ Life andTTHFers ”, recently pre¬ 
sented in one inclusive volume, lives all of Emily Dickin¬ 
son — for the outward circumstance matters little, nor is 
this the place for discussion as to whether fate ordained 
her or she ordained her own foreordination. 

Many of her poems have been reprinted in anthologies, 
selections, textbooks for recitation, and they have in¬ 
creasingly found their elect and been best interpreted by 
the expansion of those lives they have seized upon by 
force of their natural, profound intuition of the miracles 
of everyday Life, Love, and Death. 

She herself was of the part of life that is always youth, 
always magical. She wrote of it as she grew to know it, 
step by step, discovery by discovery, truth by truth — 
until time merely became eternity. She was preeminently 
the discoverer — eagerly hunting the meaning of it all; 
this strange world in which she wonderingly found her¬ 
self, — “A Balboa of house and garden,” surmising what 
lay beyond the purple horizon. She lived with a God 
we do not believe in, and trusted in an immortality 


[v] 



INTRODUCTION 


we do not deserve, in that confiding age when Duty ruled 
over Pleasure before the Puritan became a hypocrite. 

Her aspect of Deity, — as her intimation, — was her 
own, — unique, peculiar, unimpaired by the brimstone 
theology of her day. 

Her poems reflect this direct relation toward the great 
realities we have later avoided, covered up, or tried to wipe 
out; perhaps because were they really so great we be¬ 
come so small in consequence. All truth came to Emily 
straight from honor to honor unimpaired. She never 
trafficked with falsehood seriously, never employed a 
deception in thought or feeling of her own. This pitiless 
sincerity dictated: 

“ I like a look of agony 
Because I know it’s true 
Men do not sham convulsion 
Nor simulate a throe.” 

As light after darkness, Summer following Winter, she 
is inevitable, unequivocal. Evasion of fact she knew not, 
though her body might flit away from interruption, leav¬ 
ing an intruder to “Think that a sunbeam left the door 
ajar.” 

Her entities were vast — as her words were few; those 
words like dry-point etching or frost upon the pane! 
Doubly aspected, every event, every object seemed to 
hold for her both its actual and imaginative dimension. 
By this power she carries her readers behind the veil 
obscuring less gifted apprehension. She even descends 
over the brink of the grave to toy with the outworn ves¬ 
ture of the spirit, recapture the dead smile on lips sur¬ 
rendered forever; then, as on the wings of Death, betakes 


[vi] 


INTRODUCTION 


herself and her reader in the direction of the escaping 
soul to new, incredible heights. 

Doubly her life carried on, two worlds in her brown 
eyes, by which habit of the Unseen she confessed: 

“ I fit for them, 

I seek the dark till I am thorough fit. 

The labor is a solemn one, 

With this sufficient sweet — 

That abstinence as mine produce 
A purer good for them, 

If I succeed,— 

If not, I had 

The transport of the Aim. ,, 

This transport of the aim absorbed her, and this ab¬ 
sorption is her clearest explanation, — the absorption in 
This excluding observance of That. Most of all she was 
busy. It takes time even for genius to crystallize the 
thought with which her letters and poems are crammed. 
Her solitude was never idle. 

Her awe of that unknown sacrament of love per¬ 
meated all she wrote, and before Nature, God, and Death 
she is more fearless than that archangel of portentous 
shadow she instinctively dreaded. 

Almost transfigured by reverence, her poems are per¬ 
vaded by jnference sharply in contrast to the balder speech 
of to-day. Here the mystic suppressed the woman, though 
her heart leaped up over children, — radiant phenomena 
to her, akin to stars fallen among her daffodils in the 
orchard; and her own renunciation, chalice at lip, was 
nobly, frankly given in the poem ending: 

“ Each bound the other’s crucifix, 

We gave no other bond. 

[vii] 


INTRODUCTION 


Sufficient troth that we shall rise — 

Deposed, at length, the grave — 

To that new marriage, justified 
Through Calvaries of Love! ” 

Her own philosophy had early taught her that All was 
in All: there were no degrees in anything. Accordingly 
nothing was mean or trivial, and her “ fainting robin ” 
became a synonym of the universe. She saw in absolute 
terms which gave her poetry an accuracy like that ob¬ 
tained under the microscope of modern science. But her 
soul dominated, and when her footsteps wavered her 
terms were still dictated by her unquenchable spirit. 

Hers too were spirit terms with life and friends, in 
which respect she was of a divergence from the usual 
not easily to be condoned. 

It was precisely the clamor of the commonplace ex¬ 
asperated by the austerities of a reserved individuality, 
that provoked her immortal exclamation: 

“ Much madness is divinest sense 
To a discerning eye. 

Much sense the starkest madness; 

’T is the majority 
In this, as all prevails. 

Assent and you are sane — 

Demur — you ’re straightway dangerous 
And handled with a chain.” 

Her interpretation demands height and depth of ap¬ 
plication in her readers, for although her range is that of 
any soul not earth-bound by the senses, she does not 
always make it immediately plain when she speaks out 
of her own vision in her own tongue. In spite of which, 
beyond those who profess her almost as a cult, she 


[viii] 


INTRODUCTION 


is supremely the poet of those who “ never read poetry.” 
The scoffers, the literary agnostics, make exception 
for her. She is also the poet of the unpoetic, the un¬ 
learned foreigner, the busy, practical, inexpressive man 
as well as woman, the wise young and groping old, the 
nature worshipper, the schoolgirl, children caught by her 
fairy lineage, and lovers of all degree. 

Full many a preacher has found her line at the heart 
of his matter and left her verse to fly up with his con¬ 
clusion. And it is the Very Reverend head of a most 
Catholic order who writes, “ I bless God for Emily, — 
some of her writings have had a more profound influence 
on my life than anything else that any one has ever 
written.” 

Mystic to mystic, mind to mind, spirit to spirit, dust 
to dust. She was at the source of things and dwelt beside 
the very springs of life, yet those deep wells from which 
she drew were of the wayside, though their waters were 
of eternal truth, her magnificat one of the certainties of 
every immortal being. Here in her poems the arisen 
Emily, unabashed by mortal bonds, speaks to her “ Divine 
Majority ”: 

“ Split the lark and you ’ll find the music — 

Bulb after bulb, in silver rolled, 

Scantily dealt to the Summer morning, 

Saved for your ears when lutes are old.” 

But in what vernacular explain the skylark to the 
mole — even she was at loss to tell. And for the true 
lovers of the prose or poetry of Emily Dickinson, ex¬ 
planation of her is as impertinent as unnecessary. 

Martha Dickinson Bianchi. 


[ix] 


Siena, 

March. 1924. 


4 


r 


















NOTE 


For the convenience of readers familiar with previous 
editions of Emily Dickinson’s poems the original four 
divisions have here been retained, each now including 
all the poems of its own group in the three volumes of 
the series. 

The names given to many of the poems by former 
editors have been dropped, leaving them as they were 
found in manuscript, — not entitled; but the old land¬ 
marks of “Life, Nature, Love, Time and Eternity” 
remain at suggestion of the publisher-, for whose kind con¬ 
sideration I make sincere acknowledgment, as also for 
the invaluable assistance of Alfred Leete Hampson. 

M. D. B. 


[xi] 














CONTENTS 


Page 

Introduction . v 

PART ONE 

Life. 1 

PART TWO 

Nature.73 

PART THREE 

Love.143 

PART FOUR 

Time and Eternity.179 

PART FIVE 

The Single Hound.255 


[xiii] 








PART ONE 


LIFE 


CT^HIS is my letter to the world, 
-*• That never wrote to me ,— 
The simple news that Nature told, 
With tender majesty. 


Her message is committed 
To hands I cannot see; 

For love of her, sweet countrymen, 
Judge tenderly of me! 


I 


S UCCESS is counted sweetest 
By those who ne’er succeed. 
To comprehend a nectar 
Requires sorest need. 

Not one of all the purple host 
Who took the flag to-day 
Can tell the definition, 

So clear, of victory, 

As he, defeated, dying, 

On whose forbidden ear 
The distant strains of triumph 
Break, agonized and clear. 


II 

O UR share of night to bear, 
Our share of morning, 
Our blank in bliss to fill, 

Our blank in scorning. 

Here a star, and there a star, 
Some lose their way. 

Here a mist, and there a mist, 
Afterwards — day! 

[3] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


III 

S OUL, wilt thou toss again? 

By just such a hazard 
Hundreds have lost, indeed, 
But tens have won an all. 

Angels’ breathless ballot 
Lingers to record thee; 

Imps in eager caucus 
Raffle for my soul. 


IV 

IS so much joy! ’Tis so much joy! 
X If I should fail, what poverty! 

And yet, as poor as I 

Have ventured all upon a throw; 

Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so 
This side the victory! 

Life is but life, and death but death! 

Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath! 
And if, indeed, I fail, 

At least to know the worst is sweet. 
Defeat means nothing but defeat, 

No drearier can prevail! 


[4] 


LIFE 


And if I gain, — oh, gun at sea, 

Oh, bells that in the steeples be, 

At first repeat it slow! 

For heaven is a different thing 
Conjectured, and waked sudden in, 
And might o’erwhelm me so! 


V 

G LEE! the great storm is over! 

Four have recovered the land; 
Forty gone down together 
Into the boiling sand. 

Ring, for the scant salvation! 

Toll, for the bonnie souls, — 

Neighbor and friend and bridegroom, 
Spinning upon the shoals! 

How they will tell the shipwreck 
When winter shakes the door, 

Till the children ask, “ But the forty? 
Did they come back no more ? ” 


Then a silence suffuses the story, 

And a softness the teller’s eye; 

And the children no further question, 
And only the waves reply. 

[ 5 ] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


VI 

I F I can stop one heart from breaking, 
I shall not live in vain; 

If I can ease one life the aching, 

Or cool one pain, 

Or help one fainting robin 
Unto his nest again, 

I shall not live in vain. 


VII 


W ITHIN my reach! 

I could have touched! 

I might have chanced that way! 
Soft sauntered through the village, 
Sauntered as soft away! 

So unsuspected violets 
Within the fields lie low, 

Too late for striving fingers 
That passed, an hour ago. 


VIII 

A WOUNDED deer leaps highest, 
I’ve heard the hunter tell; 

’T is but the ecstasy of death, 

And then the brake is still. 


[6] 


LIFE 


The smitten rock that gushes, 
The trampled steel that springs: 
A cheek is always redder 
Just where the hectic stings! 

Mirth is the mail of anguish, 

In which it caution arm, 

Lest anybody spy the blood 
And “ You ’re hurt ” exclaim! 


IX 


T HE heart asks pleasure first, 
And then, excuse from pain; 
And then, those little anodynes 
That deaden suffering; 

And then, to go to sleep; 

And then, if it should be 
The will of its Inquisitor, 

The liberty to die. 


X 


PRECIOUS, mouldering pleasure ’tis 



To meet an antique book, 
In just the dress his century wore; 
A privilege, I think, 


[7] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


His venerable hand to take, 

And warming in our own, 

A passage back, or two, to make 
To times when he was young. 


His quaint opinions to inspect, 

His knowledge to unfold 

On what concerns our mutual mind. 

The literature of old; 


What interested scholars most, 
What competitions ran 
When Plato was a certainty, 
And Sophocles a man; 


When Sappho was a living girl, 
And Beatrice wore 
The gown that Dante deified. 
Facts, centuries before, 


He traverses familiar, 

As one should come to town 

And tell you all your dreams were true 

He lived where dreams were born. 


His presence is enchantment, 

You beg him not to go; 

Old volumes shake their vellum heads 
And tantalize, just so. 


[8] 


LIFE 


XI 


M UCH madness is divinest sense 
To a discerning eye; 

Much sense the starkest madness. 

’T is the majority 
In this, as all, prevails. 

Assent, and you are sane; 

Demur, — you ’re straightway dangerous, 
And handled with a chain. 


XII 

I ASKED no other thing, 

No other was denied. 

I offered Being for it; 

The mighty merchant smiled. 

Brazil? He twirled a button, 
Without a glance my way: 

“ But, madam, is there nothing else 
That we can show to-day ? ” 


XIII 

T HE soul selects her own society, 
Then shuts the door; 

On her divine majority 
Obtrude no more. 


[9] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


Unmoved, she notes the chariot’s pausing 
At her low gate; 

Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling 
Upon her mat. 

I’ve known her from an ample nation 
Choose one; 

Then close the valves of her attention 
Like stone. 


XIV 

S OME things that fly there be, — 
Birds, hours, the bumble-bee: 
Of these no elegy. 

Some things that stay there be, — 
Grief, hills, eternity: 

Nor this behooveth me. 

There are, that resting, rise. 

Can I expound the skies ? 

How still the riddle lies! 


XV 


[ KNOW some lonely houses off the road 
A robber’d like the look of, — 

Wooden barred, 


And windows hanging low, 
Inviting to 
A portico, 


[io] 


LIFE 


Where two could creep: 

One hand the tools, 

The other peep 
To make sure all’s asleep. 

Old-fashioned eyes, 

Not easy to surprise! 

How orderly the kitchen’d look by night, 
With just a clock,— 

But they could gag the tick, 

And mice won’t bark; 

And so the walls don’t tell, 

None will. 

A pair of spectacles ajar just stir — 

An almanac’s aware. 

Was it the mat winked, 

Or a nervous star ? 

The moon slides down the stair 
To see who’s there. 

There’s plunder, — where ? 

Tankard, or spoon, 

Earring, or stone, 

A watch, some ancient brooch 
To match the grandmamma, 

Staid sleeping there. 

Day rattles, too, 

Stealth’s slow; 

The sun has got as far 
As the third sycamore. 

Screams chanticleer, 

“ Who’s there?” 


[ ii ] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

And echoes, trains away, 

Sneer — “ Where?” 

While the old couple, just astir. 

Think that the sunrise left the door ajar 


XVI 

T O fight aloud is very brave, 
But gallanter, I know, 

Who charge within the bosom, 
The cavalry of woe. 

Who win, and nations do not see, 
Who fall, and none observe, 
Whose dying eyes no country 
Regards with patriot love. 

We trust, in plumed procession, 
For such the angels go, 

Rank after rank, with even feet 
And uniforms of snow. 


XVII 


W HEN night is almost done, 
And sunrise grows so near 
That we can touch the spaces, 

It’s time to smooth the hair 


And get the dimples ready, 
And wonder we could care 
For that old faded midnight 
That frightened but an hour. 


XVIII 


R EAD, sweet, how others strove, 
Till we are stouter; 

What they renounced, 

Till we are less afraid; 

How many times they bore 
The faithful witness, 

Till we are helped, 

As if a kingdom cared! 

Read then of faith 

That shone above the fagot; 

Clear strains of hymn 
The river could not drown; 

Brave names of men 
And celestial women, 

Passed out of record 
Into renown! 


XIX 


P AIN has an element of blank; 

It cannot recollect 
When it began, or if there were 
A day when it was not. 

It has no future but itself, 

Its infinite realms contain 
Its past, enlightened to perceive 
New periods of pain. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XX 

I TASTE a liquor never brewed, 
From tankards scooped in pearl; 
Not all the vats upon the Rhine 
Yield such an alcohol! 

Inebriate of air am I, 

And debauchee of dew, 

Reeling, through endless summer days, 
From inns of molten blue. 

When landlords turn the drunken bee 
Out of the foxglove’s door, 

When butterflies renounce their drams, 
I shall but drink the more! 

Till seraphs swing their snowy hats, 
And saints to windows run, 

To see the little tippler 
Leaning against the sun! 


XXI 

H E ate and drank the precious words, 
His spirit grew robust; 

He knew no more that he was poor. 

Nor that his frame was dust. 

He danced along the dingy days, 

And this bequest of wings 
Was but a book. What liberty 
A loosened spirit brings! 


[14] 


LIFE 


XXII 

I HAD no time to hate, because 
The grave would hinder me, 
And life was not so ample I 
Could finish enmity. 

Nor had I time to love; but since 
Some industry must be, 

The little toil of love, I thought, 
Was large enough for me. 


XXIII 


,/ T' WAS such a little, little boat 
A That toddled down the bay! 
’T was such a gallant, gallant sea 
That beckoned it away! 


’T was such a greedy, greedy wave 
That licked it from the coast; 

Nor ever guessed the stately sails 
My little craft was lost! 


XXIV 

W HETHER my bark went down at sea, 
Whether she met with gales, 

Whether to isles enchanted 
She bent her docile sails; 


[15] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


By what mystic mooring 
She is held to-day,— 

This is the errand of the eye 
Out upon the bay. 


XXY 

B elshazzar had a letter,— 

He never had but one; 
Belshazzar’s correspondent 
Concluded afid begun 
In that immortal copy 
The conscience of us all 
Can read without its glasses 
On revelation’s wall. 


XXVI 



HE brain within its groove 


A Runs evenly and true; 

But let a splinter swerve, 

’T were easier for you 
To put the water back 
When floods have slit the hills, 

And scooped a turnpike for themselves, 
And blotted out the mills! 


LIFE 


XXVII 

T ’M nobody! Who are you ? 

Are you nobody, too ? 

Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell! 
They’d banish us, you know. 

How dreary to be somebody! 

How public, like a frog 

To tell your name the livelong day 

To an admiring bog! 


XXVIII 

T BRING an unaccustomed wine 

To lips long parching, next to mine, 
And summon them to drink. 

Crackling with fever, they essay; 

I turn my brimming eyes away, 

And come next hour to look. 

The hands still hug the tardy glass; 
The lips I would have cooled, alas! 

Are so superfluous cold, 

I would as soon attempt to warm 
The bosoms where the frost has lain 
Ages beneath the mould. 

[x 7] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


Some other thirsty there may be 
To whom this would have pointed me 
Had it remained to speak. 

And so I always bear the cup 
If, haply, mine may be the drop 
Some pilgrim thirst to slake,— 

If, haply, any say to me, 

“ Unto the little, unto me,” 

When I at last awake. 


XXIX 

T HE nearest dream recedes, unrealized. 
The heaven we chase 
Like the June bee 
Before the school-boy 
Invites the race; 

Stoops to an easy clover — 

Dips — evades — teases — deploys; 

Then to the royal clouds 
Lifts his light pinnace 
Heedless of the boy 

Staring, bewildered, at the mocking sky. 


Homesick for steadfast honey, 
Ah ! the bee flies not 
That brews that rare variety. 


LIFE 


XXX 


W E play at paste, 

Till qualified for pearl, 
Then drop the paste, 

And deem ourself a fool. 

The shapes, though, were similar. 
And our new hands 
Learned gem-tactics 
Practising sands. 


XXXI 

I FOUND the phrase to every thought 
I ever had, but one; 

And that defies me, — as a hand 
Did try to chalk the sun 

To races nurtured in the dark; — 

How would your own begin ? 

Can blaze be done in cochineal, 

Or noon in mazarin ? 


XXXII 


H OPE is the thing with feathers 
That perches in the soul, 

And sings the tune without the words, 
And never stops at all, 

[19] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


And sweetest in the gale is heard; 
And sore must be the storm 
That could abash the little bird 
That kept so many warm. 

I’ve heard it in the chillest land, 
And on the strangest sea; 

Yet, never, in extremity. 

It asked a crumb of me. 


XXXIII 

D ARE you see a soul at the white heat ? 

Then crouch within the door. 

Red is the fire’s common tint; 

But when the vivid ore 

Has sated flame’s conditions, 

Its quivering substance plays 
Without a color but the light 
Of unanointed blaze. 

Least village boasts its blacksmith, 

Whose anvil’s even din 
Stands symbol for the finer forge 
That soundless tugs within, 

Refining these impatient ores 
With hammer and with blaze, 

Until the designated light 
Repudiate the forge. 


[20] 


LIFE 


XXXIV 

W HO never lost, are unprepared 
A coronet to find; 

Who never thirsted, flagons 
And cooling tamarind. 

Who never climbed the weary league — 
Can such a foot explore 
The purple territories 
On Pizarro’s shore? 

How many legions overcome? 

The emperor will say. 

How many colors taken 
On Revolution Day? 

How many bullets bearest ? 

The royal scar hast thou? 

Angels, write “ Promoted ” 

On this soldier’s brow! 


XXXV 

I CAN wade grief, 
Whole pools of it, — 
I’m used to that. 

But the least push of joy 
Breaks up my feet, 

And I tip — drunken. 

Let no pebble smile, 

’T was the new liquor, — 
That was all! 


[21] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

Power is only pain, 

Stranded, through discipline, 
Till weights will hang. 

Give balm to giants, 

And they’ll wilt, like men. 
Give Himmaleh,— 

They’ll carry him! 


XXXVI 

I NEVER hear the word “ escape 
Without a quicker blood, 

A sudden expectation, 

A flying attitude. 

I never hear of prisons broad 
By soldiers battered down, 

But I tug childish at my bars, — 
Only to fail again! 


XXXVII 


F OR each ecstatic instant 
We must an anguish pay 
In keen and quivering ratio 
To the ecstasy. 

For each beloved hour 
Sharp pittances of years, 

Bitter contested farthings 
And coffers heaped with tears. 


[22] 


LIFE 


XXXVIII 


T HROUGH the straight pass of suffering 
The martyrs even trod, 

Their feet upon temptation, 

Their faces upon God. 


A stately, shriven company; 
Convulsion playing round, 
Harmless as streaks of meteor 
Upon a planet’s bound. 

Their faith the everlasting troth; 
Their expectation fair; 

The needle to the north degree 
Wades so, through polar air. 


XXXIX 

I MEANT to have but modest needs, 
Such as content, and heaven; 
Within my income these could lie, 
And life and I keep even. 

But since the last included both, 

It would suffice my prayer 
But just for one to stipulate, 

And grace would grant the pair. 

[23] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


And so, upon this wise I prayed, — 
Great Spirit, give to me 
A heaven not so large as yours, 

But large enough for me. 

A smile suffused Jehovah’s face; 

The cherubim withdrew; 

Grave saints stole out to look at me, 
And showed their dimples, too. 

I left the place with all my might, — 
My prayer away I threw; 

The quiet ages picked it up, 

And Judgment twinkled, too, 

That one so honest be extant 
As take the tale for true 
That “ Whatsoever you shall ask, 
Itself be given you.” 

But I, grown shrewder, scan the skies 
With a suspicious air, — 

As children, swindled for the first, 

All swindlers be, infer. 


XL 



HE thought beneath so slight a film 


A Is more distinctly seen, — 
As laces just reveal the surge, 
Or mists the Apennine. 


[24] 


LIFE 


XLI 


T HE soul unto itself 

Is an imperial friend, — 
Or the most agonizing! spy 
An enemy could send. 


Secure against its own, 

No treason it can fear; 

Itself its sovereign, of itself 
The soul should stand in awe. 


XLI I 

S URGEONS must be very careful 
When they take the knife! 
Underneath their fine incisions 
Stirs the culprit, — Life! 


XLIII 

I LIKE to see it lap the miles, 
And lick the valleys up, 

And stop to feed itself at tanks; 
And then, prodigious, step 

Around a pile of mountains, 
And, supercilious, peer 
In shanties by the sides of roads; 
And then a quarry pare 

[25] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


To fit its sides, and crawl between, 
Complaining all the while 
In horrid, hooting stanza; 

Then chase itself down hill 

And neigh like Boanerges; 

Then, punctual as a star, 

Stop — docile and omnipotent — 
At its own stable door. 


XLIV 


T HE show is not the show, 
But they that go. 
Menagerie to me 
My neighbor be. 

Fair play — 

Both went to see. 


XLV 

D ELIGHT becomes pictorial 

When viewed through pain,— 
More fair, because impossible 
That any gain. 

The mountain at a given distance 
In amber lies; 

Approached, the amber flits a little,— 
And that’s the skies! 


[26] 


LIFE 


XLVI 


THOUGHT went up my mind to-day 



That I have had before, 

But did not finish, — some way back, 
I could not fix the year, 

Nor where it went, nor why it came 
The second time to me, 

Nor definitely what it was, 

Have I the art to say. 

But somewhere in my soul, I know 
I’ve met the thing before; 

It just reminded me — ’t was all — 
And came my way no more. 


XLVII 


I S Heaven a physician ? 

They say that He can heal; 
But medicine posthumous 
Is unavailable. 

Is Heaven an exchequer ? 

They speak of what we owe; 
But that negotiation 
I’m not a party to. 


[27] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XLVIII 

T HOUGH I get home how late, how late! 

So I get home, ’t will compensate. 
Better will be the ecstasy 
That they have done expecting me, 

When, night descending, dumb and dark, 
They hear my unexpected knock. 
Transporting must the moment be, 

Brewed from decades of agony! 

To think just how the fire will burn, 

Just how long-cheated eyes will turn 
To wonder what myself will say, 

And what itself will say to me, 

Beguiles the centuries of way! 


XLIX 


A POOR tom heart, a tattered heart, 
That sat it down to rest, 

Nor noticed that the ebbing day 
Flowed silver to the west, 

Nor noticed night did soft descend 
Nor constellation burn, 

Intent upon the vision 
Of latitudes unknown. 


The angels, happening that way, 
This dusty heart espied; 

[28] 


LIFE 


Tenderly took it up from toil 
And carried it to God. 

There, — sandals for the barefoot; 
There, — gathered from the gales, 
Do the blue havens by the hand 
Lead the wandering sails. 


L 

I SHOULD have been too glad, I see, 
Too lifted for the scant degree 
Of life’s penurious round; 

My little circuit would have shamed 
This new circumference, have blamed 
The homelier time behind. 

I should have been too saved, I see, 

Too rescued; fear too dim to me 
That I could spell the prayer 
I knew so perfect yesterday, — 

That scalding one, “ Sabachthani,” 
Recited fluent here. 

Earth would have been too much, I see, 
And heaven not enough for me; 

I should have had the joy 
Without the fear to justify,— 

The palm without the Calvary; 

So, Saviour, crucify. 

[29] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


Defeat whets victory, they say; 

The reefs in old Gethsemane 
Endear the shore beyond. 

’T is beggars banquets best define; 

’T is thirsting vitalizes wine, — 

Faith faints to understand. 

LI 

I T tossed and tossed, — 

A little brig I knew, — 

O’ertook by blast, 

It spun and spun, 

And groped delirious, for morn. 

It slipped and slipped, 

As one that drunken stepped; 

Its white foot tripped, 

Then dropped from sight. 

Ah, brig, good-night 
To crew and you; 

The ocean’s heart too smooth, too blue, 
To break for you. 


LII 



TCTORY comes late, 


» And is held low to freezing lips 
Too rapt with frost 
To take it. 


[30] 


LIFE 


How sweet it would have tasted, 
Just a drop! 

Was God so economical ? 

His table’s spread too high for us 
Unless we dine on tip-toe. 

Crumbs fit such little mouths, 
Cherries suit robins; 

The eagle’s golden breakfast 
Strangles them. 

God keeps his oath to sparrows, 
Who of little love 
Know how to starve! 


LIII 

G OD gave a loaf to every bird. 
But just a crumb to me; 

I dare not eat it, though I starve, — 
My poignant luxury 
To own it, touch it, prove the feat 
That made the pellet mine, — 

Too happy in my sparrow chance 
For ampler coveting. 

It might be famine all around, 

I could not miss an ear, 

Such plenty smiles upon my board, 
My garner shows so fair. 

I wonder how the rich may feel, — 
An Indiaman — an Earl? 

I deem that I with but a crumb 
Am sovereign of them all. 

[31] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


LIV 


"P XPERIMENT to me 
Is every one I meet. 
If it contain a kernel ? 

The figure of a nut 


Presents upon a tree, 
Equally plausibly; 

But meat within is requisite. 
To squirrels and to me. 


LV 


M Y country need not change her gown, 
Her triple suit as sweet 
As when’t was cut at Lexington, 

And first pronounced “ a fit.” 


Great Britain disapproves “ the stars ”; 
Disparagement discreet, -— 

There’s something in their attitude 
That taunts her bayonet. 


LVI 


Tj^AITH is a fine invention 
For gentlemen who see; 
But microscopes are prudent 
In an emergency! 

[32] 


LIFE 


LVII 

E XCEPT the heaven had come so near, 
So seemed to choose my door, 

The distance would not haunt me so; 

I had not hoped before. 

But just to hear the grace depart 
I never thought to see, 

Afflicts me with a double loss; 

’T is lost, and lost to me. 


LVII I 


P ORTRAITS are to daily faces 
As an evening west 
To a fine, pedantic sunshine 
In a satin vest. 


LIX 

I TOOK my power in my hand 
And went against the world; 
’T was not so much as David had, 
But I was twice as bold. 

I aimed my pebble, but myself 
Was all the one that fell. 

Was it Goliath was too large, 

Or only I too small ? 

[33] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


LX 


SHADY friend for torrid days 



± Is easier to find 
Than one of higher temperature 
For frigid hour of mind. 

The vane a little to the east 
Scares muslin souls away; 

If broadcloth breasts are firmer 
Than those of organdy, 

Who is to blame ? The weaver ? 
Ah! the bewildering thread! 

The tapestries of paradise 
So notelessly are made! 


LXI 


E ACH life converges to some centre 
Expressed or still ; 

Exists in every human nature 
A goal, 

Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be, 
Too fair 

For credibility’s temerity 
To dare. 

Adored with caution, as a brittle heaven, 
To reach 

Were hopeless as the rainbow’s raiment 
To touch, 


[34] 


LIFE 


Yet persevered toward, surer for the distance; 
How high 

Unto the saints’ slow diligence 
The sky! 

Ungained, it may be, by a life’s low venture, 
But then, 

Eternity enables the endeavoring 
Again. 


LXII 

B EFORE I got my eye put out, 

I liked as well to see 
As other creatures that have eyes, 

And know no other way. 

But were it told to me, to-day, 

That I might have the sky 

For mine, I tell you that my heart 

Would split, for size of me. 

The meadows mine, the mountains mine, — 
All forests, stintless stars, 

As much of noon as I could take 
Between my finite eyes. 

The motions of the dipping birds, 

The lightning’s jointed road, 

For mine to look at when I liked, — 

The news would strike me dead! 


[35] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


So, safer, guess, with just my soul 
Upon the window-pane 
Where other creatures put their eyes. 
Incautious of the sun. 


LXIII 

T ALK with prudence to a beggar 
Of “ Potosi ” and the mines! 
Reverently to the hungry 
Of your viands and your wines! 

Cautious, hint to any captive 
You have passed enfranchised feet! 
Anecdotes of air in dungeons 
Have sometimes proved deadly sweet! 


LXIV 

H E preached upon “ breadth ” till it argued him 
narrow, — 

The broad are too broad to define; 

And of “truth” until it proclaimed him a liar,— 

The truth never flaunted a sign. 

Simplicity fled from his counterfeit presence 
As gold the pyrites would shun. 

What confusion would cover the innocent Jesus 
To meet so enabled a man! 


[36] 


LIFE 


LXV 


G OOD night! which put the candle out? 
A jealous zephyr, not a doubt. 

Ah! friend, you little knew 
How long at that celestial wick 
The angels labored diligent; 

Extinguished, now, for you! 

It might have been the lighthouse spark 
Some sailor, rowing in the dark, 

Had importuned to see! 

It might have been the waning lamp 
That lit the drummer from the camp 
To purer reveille! 


LXVI 


W HEN I hoped I feared, 
Since I hoped I dared; 
Everywhere alone 
As a church remain ; 

Spectre cannot harm. 

Serpent cannot charm; 

He deposes doom, 

Who hath suffered him. 


LXVII 

A DEED knocks first at thought, 
And then it knocks at will. 
That is the manufacturing spot, 

And will at home and well. 


[37] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

It then goes out an act, 

Or is entombed so still 
That only to the ear of God 
Its doom is audible. 


LXVIII 

M INE enemy is growing old,— 
I have at last revenge. 

The palate of the hate departs; 

If any would avenge,— 

Let him be quick, the viand flits, 

It is a faded meat. 

Anger as soon as fed is dead; 

’T is starving makes it fat. 


LXIX 

R EMORSE is memory awake, 

- Her companies astir, — 

A presence of departed acts 
At window and at door. 

Its past set down before the soul, 
And lighted with a match, 
Perusal to facilitate 
Of its condensed despatch. 

[38] 


LIFE 


Remorse is cureless, — the disease 
Not even God can heal; 

For’t is His institution, — 

The complement of hell. 


LXX 

T HE body grows outside, — 

The more convenient way, — 
That if the spirit like to hide, 

Its temple stands alway 

Ajar, secure, inviting; 

It never did betray 

The soul that asked its shelter 

In timid honesty. 


LXXI 


U NDUE significance a starving man attaches 
To food 

Far off; he sighs, and therefore hopeless, 

And therefore good. 


Partaken, it relieves indeed, but proves us 
That spices fly 

In the receipt. It was the distance 
Was savory. 


[39] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


LXXII 

H EART not so heavy as mine. 
Wending late home, 

As it passed my window 
Whistled itself a tune, — 

A careless snatch, a ballad, 

A ditty of the street; 

Yet to my irritated ear 
An anodyne so sweet, 

It was as if a bobolink, 

Sauntering this way, 

Carolled and mused and carolled, 
Then bubbled slow away. 

It was as if a chirping brook 
Upon a toilsome way 
Set bleeding feet to minuets 
Without the knowing why. 

To-morrow, night will come again, 
Weary, perhaps, and sore. 

Ah, bugle, by my window, 

I pray you stroll once more! 


LXXIII 

I MANY times thought peace had come, 
When peace was far away; 

As wrecked men deem they sight the land 
At centre of the sea, 


[40] 


LIFE 


And struggle slacker, but to prove, 
As hopelessly as I, 

How many the fictitious shores 
Before the harbor lie. 


LXXIV 

U NTO my books so good to turn 
Far ends of tired days; 

It half endears the abstinence, 

And pain is missed in praise. 

As flavors cheer retarded guests 
With banquetings to be, 

So spices stimulate the time 
Till my small library. 

It may be wilderness without, 

Far feet of failing men, 

But holiday excludes the night, 
And it is bells within. 

I thank these kinsmen of the shelf; 
Their countenances bland 
Enamour in prospective, 

And satisfy, obtained. 


LXXV 


T HIS merit hath the worst,— 
It cannot be again. 

When Fate hath taunted last 
And thrown her furthest stone, 


Li] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


The maimed may pause and breathe, 
And glance securely round. 

The deer invites no longer 
Than it eludes the hound. 


LXXVI 

I HAD been hungry all the years; 

My noon had come, to dine; 

I, trembling, drew the table near, 

And touched the curious wine. 

’T was this on tables I had seen, 
When turning, hungry, lone, 

I looked in windows, for the wealth 
I could not hope to own. 

I did not know the ample bread, 

’T was so unlike the crumb 
The birds and I had often shared 
In Nature’s dining-room. 

The plenty hurt me, ’t was so new, — 
Myself felt ill and odd, 

As berry of a mountain bush 
Transplanted to the road. 

Nor was I hungry; so I found 
That hunger was a way 
Of persons outside windows, 

The entering takes away. 

[42] 


LXXVII 


I GAINED it so, 

By climbing slow, 

By catching at the twigs that grow 
Between the bliss and me. 

It hung so high, 

As well the sky 
Attempt by strategy. 

I said I gained it, — 

This was all. 

Look, how I clutch it. 

Lest it fall, 

And I a pauper go; 

Unfitted by an instant’s grace 
For the contented beggar’s face 
I wore an hour ago. 


LXXVIII 


O learn the transport by the pain, 



A As blind men learn the sun; 

To die of thirst, suspecting 
That brooks in meadows run; 

To stay the homesick, homesick feet 
Upon a foreign shore 
Haunted by native lands, the while, 
And blue, beloved air — 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


This is the sovereign anguish, 
This, the signal woe! 

These are the patient laureates 
Whose voices, trained below, 

Ascend in ceaseless carol, 
Inaudible, indeed, 

To us, the duller scholars 
Of the mysterious bard! 


LXXIX 

I YEARS had been from home, 

And now, before the door, 

I dared not open, lest a face 
I never saw before 

Stare vacant into mine 
And ask my business there. 

My business,—just a life I left, 

Was such still dwelling there? 

I fumbled at my nerve, 

I scanned the windows near; 

The silence like an ocean rolled, 

And broke against my ear. 

I laughed a wooden laugh 
That I could fear a door, 

Who danger and the dead had faced, 
But never quaked before. 

[44] 


LIFE 


I fitted to the latch 
My hand, with trembling care, 

Lest back the awful door should spring, 
And leave me standing there. 

I moved my fingers off 
As cautiously as glass, 

And held my ears, and like a thief 
Fled gasping from the house. 


LXXX 

P RAYER is the little implement 
Through which men reach 
Where presence is denied them. 
They fling their speech 

By means of it in God’s ear; 

If then He hear, 

This sums the apparatus 
Comprised in prayer. 


LXXXI 

I KNOW that he exists 
Somewhere, in silence. 
He has hid his rare life 
From our gross eyes. 

us] 



POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

’T is an instant’s play, 

’T is a fond ambush, 

Just to make bliss 
Earn her own surprise! 

But should the play 
Prove piercing earnest, 
Should the glee glaze 
In death’s stiff stare, 

Would not the fun 
Look too expensive? 

Would not the jest 
Have crawled too far? 


LXXXII 

M USICIANS wrestle everywhere: 
All day, among the crowded air, 
I hear the silver strife; 

And — waking long before the dawn — 
Such transport breaks upon the town 
I think it that “ new life! ” 

It is not bird, it has no nest; 

Nor band, in brass and scarlet dressed, 
Nor tambourine, nor man; 

It is not hymn from pulpit read, — 

The morning stars the treble led 
On time’s first afternoon! 


[46] 


LIFE 


Some say it is the spheres at play! 
Some say that bright majority 
Of vanished dames and men! 
Some think it service in the place 
Where we, with late, celestial face, 
Please God, shall ascertain! 


LXXXIII 

J UST lost when I was saved! 

Just felt the world go by! 

Just girt me for the onset with eternity, 
When breath blew back, 

And on the other side 
I heard recede the disappointed tide! 

Therefore, as one returned, I feel, 

Odd secrets of the line to tell! 

Some sailor, skirting foreign shores, 

Some pale reporter from the awful doors 
Before the seal! 

Next time, to stay! 

Next time, the things to see 
By ear unheard, 

Unscrutinized by eye. 

Next time, to tarry, 

While the ages steal,— 

Slow tramp the centuries, 

And the cycles wheel. 

[47] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


LXXXIV 


v | MS little I could care for pearls 
A Who own the ample sea; 

Or brooches, when the Emperor 
With rubies pelteth me; 


Or gold, who am the Prince of Mines; 

Or diamonds, when I see 
A diadem to fit a dome 
Continual crowning me. 


LXXXV 


S UPERIORITY to fate 
Is difficult to learn. 
’T is not conferred by any, 
But possible to earn 


A pittance at a time, 

Until, to her surprise, 

The soul with strict economy 
Subsists till Paradise. 


LXXXVI 


H OPE is a subtle glutton; 

He feeds upon the fair; 
And yet, inspected closely, 
What abstinence is there! 


us] 


LIFE 


His is the halcyon table 
That never seats but one, 
And whatsoever is consumed 
The same amounts remain. 


LXXXVII 


F ORBIDDEN fruit a flavor has 
That lawful orchards mocks; 
How luscious lies the pea within 
The pod that Duty locks! 


LXXXVIII 


H EAVEN is what I cannot reach! 

The apple on the tree, 

Provided it do hopeless hang, 

That “ heaven ” is, to me. 


The color on the cruising cloud, 

The interdicted ground 
Behind the hill, the house behind,— 
There Paradise is found! 


LXXXIX 


A WORD is dead 
When it is said, 
Some say. 

I say it just 
Begins to live 
That day. 

[49] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

XC 

T O venerate the simple days 
Which lead the seasons by, 
Needs but to remember 
That from you or me 
They may take the trifle 
Termed mortality! 

To invest existence with a stately air, 
Needs but to remember 
That the acorn there 
Is the egg of forests 
For the upper air! 


XCI 

I T’S such a little thing to weep, 
So short a thing to sigh; 

And yet by trades the size of these 
We men and women die! 


XCII 


D rowning is not so pitiful 

As the attempt to rise. 

Three times, ’t is said, a sinking man 
Comes up to face the skies, 

And then declines forever 
To that abhorred abode 


LIFE 


Where hope and he part company,— 
For he is grasped of God. 

The Maker’s cordial visage, 

However good to see, 

Is shunned, we must admit it, 

Like an adversity. 


XCIII 

H OW still the bells in steeples stand. 

Till, swollen with the sky, 

They leap upon their silver feet 
In frantic melody! 


XCIV 

I F the foolish call them “ flowers ”, 
Need the wiser tell? 

If the savants “ classify ” them, 

It is just as well! 

Those who read the Revelations 
Must not criticise 
Those who read the same edition 
With beclouded eyes! 

Could we stand with that old Moses 
Canaan denied,— 

Scan, like him, the stately landscape 
On the other side, — 

[51] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


Doubtless we should deem superfluous 
Many sciences 

Not pursued by learned angels 
In scholastic skies! 

Low amid that glad Belles lettres 
Grant that we may stand, 

Stars, amid profound Galaxies, 

At that grand “ Right hand ”! 


xcv 

C OULD mortal lip divine 
The undeveloped freight 
Of a delivered syllable, 

’T would crumble with the weight. 


XCVI 


1\ 7fY life closed twice before its close; 

It yet remains to see 
If Immortality unveil 
A third event to me, 


So huge, so hopeless to conceive, 
As these that twice befell. 
Parting is all we know of heaven, 
And all we need of hell. 


[ 52 ] 


LIFE 


XCVII 



E never know how high we are 


▼ » Till we are called to rise; 
And then, if we are true to plan, 
Our statures touch the skies. 

The heroism we recite 
Would be a daily thing, 

Did not ourselves the cubits warp 
For fear to be a king. 


XCVIII 


HILE I was fearing it, it came, 



▼ * But came with less of fear, 
Because that fearing it so long 
Had almost made it dear. 

There is a fitting a dismay, 

A fitting a despair. 

’T is harder knowing it is due, 
Than knowing it is here. 

The trying on the utmost, 

The morning it is new, 

Is terribler than wearing it 
A whole existence through. 


XCIX 

HERE is no frigate like a book 



A To take us lands away, 
Nor any coursers like a page 
Of prancing poetry. 


[S3] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


This traverse may the poorest take 
Without oppress of toll; 

How frugal is the chariot 
That bears a human soul! 


C 


W HO has not found the heaven below 
Will fail of it above. 

God’s residence is next to mine, 

His furniture is love. 


Cl 

A FACE devoid of love or grace, 

A hateful, hard, successful face, 
A face with which a stone 
Would feel as thoroughly at ease 
As were they old acquaintances,— 

First time together thrown. 


CII 

I HAD a guinea golden; 

I lost it in the sand, 

And though the sum was simple, 
And pounds were in the land, 
Still had it such a value 
Unto my frugal eye, 

That when I could not find it 
I sat me down to sigh. 

[ 54 ] 


LIFE 


I had a crimson robin 

Who sang full many a day, 

But when the woods were painted 
He, too, did fly away. 

Time brought me other robins,— 
Their ballads were the same,— 
Still for my missing troubadour 
I kept the “ house at hame.” 


I had a star in heaven; 

One Pleiad was its name. 

And when I was not heeding 
It wandered from the same. 

And though the skies are crowded, 
And all the night ashine, 

I do not care about it, 

Since none of them are mine. 


My story has a moral: 

I have a missing friend,— 
Pleiad its name, and robin. 
And guinea in the sand, — 
And when this mournful ditty, 
Accompanied with tear, 
Shall meet the eye of traitor 
In country far from here, 
Grant that repentance solemn 
May seize upon his mind, 
And he no consolation 
Beneath the sun may find. 


[55] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


CIII 

F ROM all the jails the boys and girls 
Ecstatically leap,— 

Beloved, only afternoon 
That prison does n’t keep. 

They storm the earth and stun the air, 

A mob of solid bliss. 

Alas! that frowns could lie in wait 
For such a foe as this! 


CIV 

F EW get enough, — enough is one; 

To that ethereal throng 
Have not each one of us the right 
To stealthily belong? 


CV 

U PON the gallows hung a wretch, 
Too sullied for the hell 
To which the law entitled him. 

As nature’s curtain fell 
The one who bore him tottered in, 

For this was woman’s son. 

“ ’T was all I had,” she stricken gasped; 
Oh, what a livid boon! 


LIFE 


CVI 

I FELT a cleavage in my mind 
As if my brain had split; 

I tried to match it, seam by seam, 
But could not make them fit. 

The thought behind I strove to join 
Unto the thought before, 

But sequence ravelled out of reach 
Like balls upon a floor. 


CVII 

T HE reticent volcano keeps 

His never slumbering plan; 
Confided are his projects pink 
To no precarious man. 

If nature will not tell the tale 
Jehovah told to her, 

Can human nature not survive 
Without a listener? 

Admonished by her buckled lips 
Let every babbler be. 

The only secret people keep 
Is Immortality. 


[57] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


CVIII 

I F recollecting were forgetting, 
Then I remember not; 

And if forgetting, recollecting, 
How near I had forgot! 

And if to miss were merry, 

And if to mourn were gay, 
How very blithe the fingers 
That gathered these to-day! 


CIX 


T HE farthest thunder that I heard 
Was nearer than the sky, 

And rumbles still, though torrid noons 
Have lain their missiles by. 

The lightning that preceded it 
Struck no one but myself, 

But I would not exchange the bolt 
For all the rest of life. 

Indebtedness to oxygen 
The chemist may repay, 

But not the obligation 
To electricity. 

It founds the homes and decks the days, 
And every clamor bright 
Is but the gleam concomitant 
Of that waylaying light. 

[58] 


LIFE 


The thought is quiet as a flake, — 
A crash without a sound; 

How life’s reverberation 
Its explanation found! 


CX 

/^N the bleakness of my lot 
Bloom I strove to raise. 
Late, my acre of a rock 
Yielded grape and maize. 

Soil of flint if steadfast tilled 
Will reward the hand; 

Seed of palm by Lybian sun 
Fructified in sand. 


CXI 


A DOOR just opened on a street — 
I, lost, was passing by — 

An instant’s width of warmth disclosed, 
And wealth, and company. 


The door as sudden shut, and I, 

I, lost, was passing by,— 

Lost doubly, but by contrast most, 
Enlightening misery. 

[59] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


CXII 


ARE friends delight or pain? 

Could bounty but remain 
Riches were good. 


But if they only stay 
Bolder to fly away, 
Riches are sad. 


CXIII 


ASHES denote that fire was; 
Respect the grayest pile 
For the departed creature’s sake 
That hovered there awhile. 


Fire exists the first in light, 
And then consolidates,— 
Only the chemist can disclose 
Into what carbonates. 


CXIV 

F ATE slew him, but he did not drop 
She felled — he did not fall — 
Impaled him on her fiercest stakes — 

He neutralized them all. 


[60] 


LIFE 


She stung him, sapped his firm advance, 
But, when her worst was done, 

And he, unmoved, regarded her, 
Acknowledged him a man. 


CXV 


F INITE to fail, but infinite to venture. 

For the one ship that struts the shore 
Many’s the gallant, overwhelmed creature 
Nodding in navies nevermore. 


CXVI 

I MEASURE every grief I meet 
With analytic eyes; 

I wonder if it weighs like mine, 

Or has an easier size. 

I wonder if they bore it long, 

Or did it just begin? 

I could not tell the date of mine, 

It feels so old a pain. 

I wonder if it hurts to live, 

And if they have to try, 

And whether, could they choose between. 
They would not rather die. 

[61] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


I wonder if when years have piled — 
Some thousands — on the cause 
Of early hurt, if such a lapse 
Could give them any pause; 


Or would they go on aching still 
Through centuries above, 
Enlightened to a larger pain 
By contrast with the love. 


The grieved are many, I am told; 

The reason deeper lies,— 

Death is but one and comes but once, 
And only nails the eyes. 


There’s grief of want, and grief of cold, — 
A sort they call “ despair ”; 

There ’s banishment from native eyes, 

In sight of native air. 


And though I may not guess the kind 
Correctly, yet to me 
A piercing comfort it affords 
In passing Calvary, 


To note the fashions of the cross, 
Of those that stand alone, 

Still fascinated to presume 
That some are like my own. 


[62] 


LIFE 


CXVII 

T HAVE a king who does not speak; 
So, wondering, thro’ the hours meek 
I trudge the day away,— 

Half glad when it is night and sleep, 

If, haply, thro’ a dream to peep 
In parlors shut by day. 

And if I do, when morning comes, 

It is as if a hundred drums 
Did round my pillow roll, 

And shouts fill all my childish sky, 

And bells keep saying “ victory ” 

From steeples in my soul! 


And if I don’t, the little Bird 
Within the Orchard is not heard, 
And I omit to pray, 

“ Father, thy will be done ” to-day, 
For my will goes the other way, 
And it were perjury! 


CXVIII 

I T dropped so low in my regard 
I heard it hit the ground, 
And go to pieces on the stones 
At bottom of my mind; 

[63] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less 
Than I reviled myself 
For entertaining plated wares 
Upon my silver shelf. 


CXIX 


T O lose one’s faith surpasses 
The loss of an estate, 
Because estates can be 
Replenished, — faith cannot. 


Inherited with life, 

Belief but once can be; 
Annihilate a single clause, 
And Being’s beggary. 


cxx 

I HAD a daily bliss 

I half indifferent viewed, 

Till sudden I perceived it stir,— 

It grew as I pursued, 

Till when, around a crag, 

It wasted from my sight, 

Enlarged beyond my utmost scope, 
I learned its sweetness right. 


[64] 


LIFE 


CXXI 

I WORKED for chaff, and earning wheat 
Was haughty and betrayed. 

What right had fields to arbitrate 
In matters ratified? 

I tasted wheat, — and hated chaff, 

And thanked the ample friend; 

Wisdom is more becoming viewed 
At distance than at hand. 


CXXII 

L IFE, and Death, and Giants 
^ Such as these, are still. 

Minor apparatus, hopper of the mill, 
Beetle at the candle, 

Or a fife’s small fame, 

Maintain by accident 
That they proclaim. 


CXXIII 


O UR lives are Swiss,— 

So still, so cool, 

Till, some odd afternoon, 

The Alps neglect their curtains, 
And we look farther on. 


[65] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


Italy stands the other side, 
While, like a guard between, 
The solemn Alps, 

The siren Alps, 

Forever intervene! 


CXXIV. 


R EMEMBRANCE has a rear and front, 
? T is something like a house; 

It has a garret also 

For refuse and the mouse, 


Besides, the deepest cellar 
That ever mason hewed; 
Look to it, by its fathoms 
Ourselves be not pursued, 


cxxv 

T O hang our head ostensibly, 
And subsequent to find 
That such was not the posture 
Of our immortal mind, 

Affords the sly presumption 
That, in so dense a fuzz, 

You, too, take cobweb attitudes 
Upon a plane of gauze! 


[66] 


LIFE 


CXXVI 

T HE brain is wider than the sky, 
For, put them side by side, 

The one the other will include 
With ease, and you beside. 

The brain is deeper than the sea, 
For, hold them, blue to blue, 

The one the other will absorb, 

As sponges, buckets do. 

The brain is just the weight of God, 
For, lift them, pound for pound, 
And they will differ, if they do, 

As syllable from sound. 


CXXVII 


T HE bone that has no marrow; 

What ultimate for that? 

It is not fit for table, 

For beggar, or for cat. 


A bone has obligations, 

A being has the same; 
A marrowless assembly 
Is culpabler than shame. 


But how shall finished creatures 
A function fresh obtain? — 
Old Nicodemus’ phantom 
Confronting us again! 

[67] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


CXXVIII 

T HE past is such a curious creature, 
To look her in the face 
A transport may reward us, 

Or a disgrace. 

Unarmed if any meet her, 

I charge him, fly! 

Her rusty ammunition 
Might yet reply! 


CXXIX 

T O help our bleaker parts 

Salubrious hours are given, 
Which if they do not fit for earth 
Drill silently for heaven. 


cxxx 


W HAT soft, cherubic creatures 
These gentlewomen are! 

One would as soon assault a plush 
Or violate a star. 


Such dimity convictions, 

A horror so refined 
Of freckled human nature, 
Of Deity ashamed,— 


[68] 


LIFE 


It’s such a common glory, 
A fisherman’s degree! 


Redemption, brittle lady, 
Be so, ashamed of thee. 


CXXXI 


W HO never wanted, — maddest joy 
Remains to him unknown; 

The banquet of abstemiousness 
Surpasses that of wine. 

Within its hope, though yet ungrasped 
Desire’s perfect goal, 

No nearer, lest reality 

Should disenthrall thy soul. 


CXXXII 


I T might be easier 

To fail with land in sight, 
Than gain my blue peninsula 
To perish of delight. 

CXXXIII 

OU cannot put a fire out; 



A A thing that can ignite 
Can go, itself, without a fan 
Upon the slowest night. 


[69] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


You cannot fold a flood 
And put it in a drawer,— 

Because the winds would find it out, 
And tell your cedar floor. 


CXXXIV 


A MODEST lot, a fame petite, 

A brief campaign of sting and sweet 
Is plenty! Is enough! 

A sailor’s business is the shore, 

A soldier’s — balls. Who asketh more 
Must seek the neighboring life! 


cxxxv 

I S bliss, then, such abyss 

I must not put my foot amiss 
For fear I spoil my shoe? 

I’d rather suit my foot 
Than save my boot, 

For yet to buy another pair 
Is possible 
At any fair. 

But bliss is sold just once; 

The patent lost 
None buy it any more. 

[70] 


LIFE 


CXXXVI 

I STEPPED from plank to plank 
So slow and cautiously; 

The stars about my head I felt, 
About my feet the sea. 

I knew not but the next 
Would be my final inch,— 

This gave me that precarious gait 
Some call experience. 


CXXXVII 

O NE day is there of the series 
Termed Thanksgiving day, 
Celebrated part at table, 

Part in memory. 

Neither patriarch nor pussy, 

I dissect the play; 

Seems it, to my hooded thinking, 
Reflex holiday. 

Had there been no sharp subtraction 
From the early sum, 

Not an acre or a caption 
Where was once a room, 

Not a mention, whose small pebble 
Wrinkled any bay,— 

Unto such, were such assembly, 
’Twere Thanksgiving day. 

[7i] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


CXXXVIII 

S OFTENED by Time’s consummate plush, 
How sleek the woe appears 
That threatened childhood’s citadel 
And undermined the years! 

Bisected now by bleaker griefs, 

We envy the despair 
That devastated childhood’s realm, 

So easy to repair. 


[72] 


PART TWO 


NATURE 


l\/f Y nosegays are for captives; 
YU. Dim, long-expectant eyes, 
Fingers denied the plucking, 

Patient till paradise . 


To such, if they should whisper 
Of morning and the moor, 
They hear no other errand, 

And I, no other prayer. 


I 


N ATURE, the gentlest mother, 
Impatient of no child, 

The feeblest or the waywardest, — 
Her admonition mild 

In forest and the hill 
By traveller is heard, 

Restraining rampant squirrel 
Or too impetuous bird. 

How fair her conversation, 

A summer afternoon, — 

Her household, her assembly; 

And when the sun goes down 

Her voice among the aisles 
Incites the timid prayer 
Of the minutest cricket. 

The most unworthy flower. 

When all the children sleep 
She turns as long away 
As will suffice to light her lamps; 
Then, bending from the sky, 

With infinite affection 
And infiniter care, 

Her golden finger on her lip, 

Wills silence everywhere. 

[75] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


II 


W ILL there really be a morning? 

Is there such a thing as day ? 
Could I see it from the mountains 
If I were as tall as they? 

Has it feet like water-lilies? 

Has it feathers like a bird ? 

Is it brought from famous countries 
Of which I have never heard? 

Oh, some scholar! Oh, some sailor! 
Oh, some wise man from the skies! 
Please to tell a little pilgrim 
Where the place called morning lies ! 


Ill 



T half-past three a single bird 


Unto a silent sky 
Propounded but a single term 
Of cautious melody. 

At half-past four, experiment 
Had subjugated test, 

And lo! her silver principle 
Supplanted all the rest. 

At half-past seven, element 
Nor implement was seen, 

And place was where the presence was, 
Circumference between. 


[ 76 ] 


NATURE 


IV 


HE day came slow, till five o’clock, 



A Then sprang before the hills 
Like hindered rubies, or the light 
A sudden musket spills. 

The purple could not keep the east, 

The sunrise shook from fold, 

Like breadths of topaz, packed a night, 
The lady just unrolled. 

The happy winds their timbrels took; 
The birds, in docile rows, 

Arranged themselves around their prince 
(The wind is prince of those). 

The orchard sparkled like a Jew,— 

How mighty’t was, to stay 
A guest in this stupendous place, 

The parlor of the day! 


V 


HE sun just touched the morning; 



A The morning, happy thing, 
Supposed that he had come to dwell, 
And life would be all spring. 


[ 77 ] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


She felt herself supremer,— 

A raised, ethereal thing; 
Henceforth for her what holiday! 
< Meanwhile, her wheeling king 

Trailed slow along the orchards 
His haughty, spangled hems, 
Leaving a new necessity, — 

The want of diadems! 

The morning fluttered, staggered, 
Felt feebly for her crown, — 

Her unanointed forehead 
Henceforth her only one. 


VI 



HE robin is the one 


A That interrupts the morn 
With hurried, few, express reports 
When March is scarcely on. 

The robin is the one 
That overflows the noon 
With' her cherubic quantity, 

An April but begun. 

The robin is the one 
That speechless from her nest 
Submits that home and certainty 
And sanctity are best. 


[ 78 ] 


NATURE 


VII 

F ROM cocoon forth a butterfly 
As lady from her door 
Emerged — a summer afternoon — 
Repairing everywhere, 

Without design, that I could trace. 

Except to stray abroad 
On miscellaneous enterprise N 
The clovers understood. 

Her pretty parasol was seen 
Contracting in a field 

Where men made hay, then struggling hard 
With an opposing cloud, 

Where parties, phantom as herself, 

To Nowhere seemed to go 
In purposeless circumference, 

As ’t were a tropic show. 

And notwithstanding bee that worked, 

And flower that zealous blew, 

This audience of idleness 
Disdained them, from the sky, 

Till sundown crept, a steady tide, 

And men that made the hay, 

And afternoon, and butterfly, 

Extinguished in its sea. 

[79] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


VIII 

B EFORE you thought o£ spring, 
Except as a surmise, 

You see, God bless his suddenness, 
A fellow in the skies 
Of independent hues, 

A little weather-worn, 

Inspiriting habiliments 
Of indigo and brown. 

With specimens of song, 

As if for you to choose, 

Discretion in the interval, 

With gay delays he goes 
To some superior tree 
Without a single leaf, 

And shouts for joy to nobody 
But his seraphic self! 


IX 


s[ altered look about the hills; 



A Tyrian light the village fills 
A wider sunrise in the dawn; 

A deeper twilight on the lawn; 

A print of a vermilion foot; 

A purple finger on the slope; 

A flippant fly upon the pane; 

A spider at his trade again; 


[80] 


NATURE 


An added strut in chanticleer; 

A flower expected everywhere; 

An axe shrill singing in the woods; 
Fern-odors on untravelled roads,— 
All this, and more 1 cannot tell, 

A furtive look you know as well, 
And Nicodemus’ mystery 
Receives its annual reply. 


X 

“ TX7HOSE are the little beds,” I asked, 
V V “ Which in the valleys lie ? ” 

Some shook their heads, and others smiled, 
And no one made reply. 


“ Perhaps they did not hear,” I said; 
“ I will inquire again. 

Whose are the beds, the tiny beds 
So thick upon the plain ? ” 

“ ’T is daisy in the shortest; 

A little farther on, 

Nearest the door to wake the first. 
Little leontodon. 


“ ’T is iris, sir, and aster, 
Anemone and bell, 

Batschia in the blanket red, 
And chubby daffodil.” 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


Meanwhile at many cradles 
Her busy foot she plied, 

Humming the quaintest lullaby 
That ever rocked a child. 

“ Hush! Epigea wakens! 

The crocus stirs her lids, 

Rhodora’s cheek is crimson,— 
She’s dreaming of the woods.” 

Then, turning from them, reverent, 
“ Their bed-time’t is,” she said; 

“ The bumble-bees will wake them 
When April woods are red.” 


XI 

P IGMY seraphs gone astray, 
Velvet people from Vevay, 
Belles from some lost summer day, 
Bees’ exclusive coterie. 

Paris could not lay the fold 
Belted down with emerald; 

Venice could not show a cheek 
Of a tint so lustrous meek. 

Never such an ambuscade 
As of brier and leaf displayed 
For my little damask maid. 

I had rather wear her grace 
Than an earl’s distinguished face; 


[82] 


NATURE 


I had rather dwell like her 
Than be Duke of Exeter, 
Royalty enough for me 
To subdue the bumble-bee! 


XII 

T O hear an oriole sing 

May be a common thing, 
Or only a divine. 

It is not of the bird 

Who sings the same, unheard, 

As unto crowd. 

The fashion of the ear 
Attireth that it hear 
In dun or fair. 

So whether it be rune, 

Or whether it be none, 

Is of within; 

The “ tune is in the tree/’ 

The sceptic showeth me; 

“ No, sir! In thee! ” 


XIII 


O NE of the ones that Midas touched, 
Who failed to touch us all, 

Was that confiding prodigal, 

The blissful oriole. 


[83] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


So drunk, he disavows it 
- With badinage divine; 

So dazzling, we mistake him 
For an alighting mine. 


A pleader, a dissembler, 
An epicure, a thief, — 
Betimes an oratorio, 

An ecstasy in chief; 


The Jesuit of orchards, 
He cheats as he enchants 
Of an entire attar 
For his decamping wants. 


The splendor of a Burmah, 
The meteor of birds, 
Departing like a pageant 
Of ballads and of bards. 


I never thought that Jason sought 
For any golden fleece; 

But then I am a rural man, 

With thoughts that make for peace. 


But if there were a Jason, 
Tradition suffer me 
Behold his lost emolument 
Upon the apple-tree. 

[84] 


NATURE 


XIV 

I DREADED that first robin so, 

But he is mastered now, 

And I’m accustomed to him grown, — 

He hurts a little, though. 

I thought if I could only live 
Till that first shout got by, 

Not all pianos in the woods 
Had power to mangle me. 

I dared not meet the daffodils, 

For fear their yellow gown 
Would pierce me with a fashion 
So foreign to my own. 

I wished the grass would hurry, 

So when ’t was time to see, 

He ’d be too tall, the tallest one 
Could stretch to look at me. 

I could not bear the bees' should come, 

I wished they’d stay away 

In those dim countries where they go: 

What word had they for me ? 

They ’re here, though; not a creature failed, 
No blossom stayed away 
In gentle deference to me, 

The Queen of Calvary. 

[85] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


Each one salutes me as he goes, 
And I my childish plumes 
Lift, in bereaved acknowledgment 
Of their unthinking drums. 

XV 

ROUTE of evanescence 



With a revolving wheel; 
A resonance of emerald, 

A rush of cochineal; 

And every blossom on the bush 
Adjusts its tumbled head,— 
The mail from Tunis, probably, 
An easy morning’s ride. 


XVI 



HE skies can’t keep their secret! 


J- They tell it to the hills — 

The hills just tell the orchards — 

And they the daffodils! 

A bird, by chance, that goes that way 
Soft overheard the whole. 

If I should bribe the little bird. 

Who knows but she would tell ? 

I think I won’t, however, 

It’s finer not to know; 

If summer were an axiom, 

What sorcery had snow ? 


[86] 


NATURE 


So keep your secret, Father! 

I would not, if I could, 

Know what the sapphire fellows do, 
In your new-fashioned world! 


XVII 

W HO robbed the woods, 

The trusting woods ? 

The unsuspecting trees 
Brought out their burrs and mosses 
His fantasy to please. 

He scanned their trinkets, curious, 
He grasped, he bore away. 

What will the solemn hemlock, 
What will the fir-tree say? 


XVIII 



WO butterflies went out at noon 


A And waltzed above a stream, 

Then stepped straight through the firmament 
And rested on a beam; 

And then together bore away 
Upon a shining sea, — 

Though never yet, in any port, 

Their coming mentioned be. 


[87] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


If spoken by the distant bird, 
If met in ether sea 
By frigate or by merchantman, 
Report was not to me. 


XIX 

I ST ART ED early, took my dog, 
And visited the sea; 

The mermaids in the basement 
Came out to look at me, 

And frigates in the upper floor 
Extended hempen hands, 
Presuming me to be a mouse 
Aground, upon the sands. 

But no man moved me till the tide 
Went past my simple shoe, 

And past my apron and my belt, 
And past my bodice too, 

And made as he would eat me up 

As wholly as a dew 

Upon a dandelion’s sleeve — 

And then I started too. 

And he — he followed close behind; 
I felt his silver heel 
Upon my ankle, — then my shoes 
Would overflow with pearl. 


[88] 


NATURE 


Until we met the solid town, 

No man he seemed to know; 
And bowing with a mighty look 
At me, the sea withdrew. 


XX 


RCTURUS is his other name, — 



I’d rather call him star! 

It’s so unkind of science 
To go and interfere! 

I pull a flower from the woods, — 

A monster with a glass 
Computes the stamens in a breath, 

And has her in a class. 

Whereas I took the butterfly 
Aforetime in my hat, 

He sits erect in cabinets, 

The clover-bells forgot. 

What once was heaven, is zenith now. 
Where I proposed to go 
When time’s brief masquerade was done, 
Is mapped, and charted too! 

What if the poles should frisk about 
And stand upon their heads! 

I hope I’m ready for the worst, 
Whatever prank betides! 


[89] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


Perhaps the kingdom of Heaven’s changed! 

I hope the children there 

Won’t be new-fashioned when I come, 

And laugh at me, and stare! 

I hope the father in the skies 
Will lift his little girl,— 

Old-fashioned, naughty, everything,— 

Over the stile of pearl! 


XXI 


NT awful tempest mashed the air, 



± The clouds were gaunt and few; 

A black, as of a spectre’s cloak, 

Hid heaven and earth from view. 

The creatures chuckled on the roofs 
And whistled in the air, 

And shook their fists and gnashed their teeth, 
And swung their frenzied hair. 

The morning lit, the birds arose; 

The monster’s faded eyes 
Turned slowly to his native coast. 

And peace was Paradise! 


XXII 


M everywhere of silver, 
With ropes of sand 
To keep it from effacing 
The track called land. 



[90] 


NATURE 


XXIII 


BIRD came down the walk: 


He did not know I saw; 

He bit an angle-worm in halves 
And ate the fellow, raw. 

And then he drank a dew 
From a convenient grass, 

And then hopped sidewise to the wall 
To let a beetle pass. 

He glanced with rapid eyes 
That hurried all abroad, — 

They looked like frightened beads, I thought 
He stirred his velvet head 

Like one in danger; cautious, 

I offered him a crumb, 

And he unrolled his feathers 
And rowed him softer home 

Than oars divide the ocean, 

Too silver for a seam, 

Or butterflies, off banks of noon, 

Leap, plashless, as they swim. 


XXIV 


NARROW fellow in the grass 



^ Occasionally rides; 

You may have met him, — did you not? 
His notice sudden is. 


[91] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


The grass divides as with a comb, 

A spotted shaft is seen; 

And then it closes at your feet 
And opens further on. 

He likes a boggy acre, 

A floor too cool for corn. 

Yet when a child, and barefoot, 

I more than once, at morn, 

Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash 
Unbraiding in the sun, — 

When, stooping to secure it, 

It wrinkled, and was gone. 

Several of nature’s people 
I know, and they know me; 

I feel for them a transport 
Of cordiality; 

But never met this fellow, 

Attended or alone, 

Without a tighter breathing, 

And zero at the bone. 


XXV 


HE mushroom is the elf of plants, 



At evening it is not; 


At morning in a truffled hut 
It stops upon a spot 


[92] 


NATURE 


As if it tarried always; , 

And yet its whole career 
Is shorter than a snake’s delay. 
And fleeter than a tare. 

’T is vegetation’s juggler, 

The germ of alibi; 

Doth like a bubble antedate, 

And like a bubble hie. 

I feel as if the grass were pleased 
To have it intermit; 

The surreptitious scion 
Of summer’s circumspect. 

Had nature any outcast face, 
Could she a son contemn, 

Had nature an Iscariot, 

That mushroom, — it is him. 


XXVI 

T HERE came a wind like a bugle; 

It quivered through the grass, 
And a green chill upon the heat 
So ominous did pass 
We barred the windows and the doors 
As from an emerald ghost; 

The doom’s electric moccason 
That very instant passed. 

On a strange mob of panting trees, 
And fences fled away, 


[93] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

And rivers where the houses ran 
The living looked that day. 

The bell within the steeple wild 
The flying tidings whirled. 

How much can come 
And much can go, 

And yet abide the world! 


XXVII 


A SPIDER sewed at night 
Without a light 
Upon an arc of white. 

If ruff it was of dame 
Or shroud of gnome, 
Himself, himself inform. 

Of immortality 
His strategy 
Was physiognomy. 


XXVIII 

I KNOW a place where summer strives 
With such a practised frost, 

She each year leads her daisies back, 
Recording briefly, “ Lost.” 

But when the south wind stirs the pools 
And struggles in the lanes, 

Her heart misgives her for her vow. 

And she pours soft refrains 


[94] 


NATURE 


Into the lap of adamant, 

And spices, and the dew, 

That stiffens quietly to quartz, 
Upon her amber shoe. 


XXIX 

T HE one that could repeat the summer day 
Were greater than itself, though he 
Minutest of mankind might be. 

And who could reproduce the sun, 

At period of going down — 

The lingering and the stain, I mean — 

When Orient has been outgrown, 

And Occident becomes unknown. 

His name remain. 


XXX 

T HE wind tapped like a tired man. 
And like a host, “ Come in,” 

I boldly answered; entered then 
My residence within 

A rapid, footless guest, 

To offer whom a chair 
Were as impossible as hand 
A sofa to the air. 


[95] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

No bone had he to bind him, 

His speech was like the push 
Of numerous humming-birds at once 
From a superior bush. 

His countenance a billow, 

His fingers, if he pass, 

Let go a music, as of tunes 
Blown tremulous in glass. 

He visited, still flitting; 

Then, like a timid man, 

Again he tapped — ’t was flurriedly — 
And I became alone. 

XXXI 

1VTATURE rarer uses yellow 
-L ^ Than another hue; 

Saves she all of that for sunsets, — 
Prodigal of blue, 

Spending scarlet like a woman. 

Yellow she affords 
Only scantly and selectly, 

Like a lover’s words. 

XXXII 

T HE leaves, like women, interchange 
Sagacious confidence; 

Somewhat of nods, and somewhat of 
Portentous inference, 


[96] 


NATURE 


The parties in both cases 
Enjoining secrecy,— 
Inviolable compact 
To notoriety. 


XXXIII 

H OW happy is the little stone 

That rambles in the road alone, 
And does n’t care about careers, 

And exigencies never fears; 

Whose coat of elemental brown 
A passing universe put on; 

And independent as the sun, 

Associates or glows alone, 

Fulfilling absolute decree 
In casual simplicity. 



XXXIV 

I T sounded as if the streets were running, 
And then the streets stood still. 

Eclipse was all we could see at the window, 
And awe was all we could feel. 

By and by the boldest stole out of his covert, 
To see if time was there. 

Nature was in her beryl apron, 

Mixing fresher air. 


[97] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XXXV 


I ^HE rat is the concisest tenant. 

# He pays no rent, — 
Repudiates the obligation, 

On schemes intent. 


Balking our wit 
To sound or circumvent, 
Hate cannot harm 
A foe so reticent. 

Neither decree 
Prohibits him, 

Lawful as 
Equilibrium. 


XXXVI 

F REQUENTLY the woods are pink, 
Frequently are brown; 

Frequently the hills undress 
Behind my native town. 

Oft a head is crested 
I was wont to see, 

And as oft a cranny 
Where it used to be. 

And the earth, they tell me, 

On its axis turned,— 

Wonderful rotation 
By but twelve performed! 

[98] 


NATURE 


XXXVII 

T HE wind begun to rock the grass 

With threatening tunes and low,— 
He flung a menace at the earth, 

A menace at the sky. 

The leaves unhooked themselves from trees 
And started all abroad; 

The dust did scoop itself like hands 
And throw away the road. 

The wagons quickened on the streets, 

The thunder hurried slow; 

The lightning showed a yellow beak. 

And then a livid claw. 

The birds put up the bars to nests, 

The cattle fled to barns; 

There came one drop of giant rain, 

And then, as if the hands 

That held the dams had parted hold. 

The waters wrecked the sky, 

But overlooked my father’s house, 

Just quartering a tree. 


XXXVIII 


S OUTH winds jostle them, 
Bumblebees come, 
Hover, hesitate, 

Drink, and are gone. 

[99] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


Butterflies pause 

On their passage Cashmere; 

I, softly plucking, 

Present them here! 


XXXIX 

B RING me the sunset in a cup, 

Reckon the morning’s flagons up, 
And say how many dew; 

Tell me how far the morning leaps, 

Tell me what time the weaver sleeps 
Who spun the breadths of blue! 

Write me how many notes there be 
In the new robin’s ecstasy 
Among astonished boughs; 

How many trips the tortoise makes, 
How many cups the bee partakes,— 
The debauchee of dews! 

Also, who laid the rainbow’s piers, 

Also, who leads the docile spheres 
By withes of supple blue? 

Whose fingers string the stalactite, 
Who counts the wampum of the night, 
To see that none is due? 

Who built this little Alban house 
And shut the windows down so close 
My spirit cannot see? 

[ioo] 


NATURE 


Who ’ll let me out some gala day, 
With implements to fly away, 
Passing pomposity ? 


XL 

S HE sweeps with many-colored brooms, 
And leaves the shreds behind; 

Oh, housewife in the evening west, 

Come back, and dust the pond! 

You dropped a purple ravelling in, 

You dropped an amber thread; 

And now you’ve littered all the East 
With duds of emerald! 

And still she plies her spotted brooms, 

And still the aprons fly, 

Till brooms fade softly into stars — 

And then I come away. 


XLI 

L IKE mighty footlights burned the red 
^ At bases of the trees, — 

The far theatricals of day 
Exhibiting to these. 

’T was universe that did applaud 
While, chiefest of the crowd, 

Enabled by his royal dress, 

Myself distinguished God. 

[ioi] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XLII 

W HERE ships of purple gently toss 
On seas of daffodil, 

Fantastic sailors mingle, 

And then — the wharf is still. 


XLIII 

B LAZING in gold and quenching in purple, 
Leaping like leopards to the sky, 

Then at the feet of the old horizon 
Laying her spotted face, to die; 

Stooping as low as the kitchen window, 
Touching the roof and tinting the barn, 
Kissing her bonnet to the meadow, — 

And the juggler of day is gone! 


XLIV 


F ARTHER in summer than the birds, 
Pathetic from the grass, 

A minor nation celebrates 
Its unobtrusive mass. 


No ordinance is seen, 

So gradual the grace, 

A pensive custom it becomes, 
Enlarging loneliness. 


NATURE 


Antiquest felt at noon 
When August, burning low, 
Calls forth this spectral canticle, 
Repose to typify. 

Remit as yet no grace, 

No furrow on the glow, 

Yet a druidic difference 
Enhances nature now. 


XLV 



imperceptibly as grief 


*• The summer lapsed away, — 
Too imperceptible, at last, 

To seem like perfidy. 

A quietness distilled, 

As twilight long begun, 

Or Nature, spending with herself 
Sequestered afternoon. 

The dusk drew earlier in, 

The morning foreign shone, — 

A courteous, yet harrowing grace, 
As guest who would be gone. 

And thus, without a wing; 

Or service of a keel, 

Our summer made her light escape 
Into the beautiful. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XLVI 


I T can’t be summer, — that got through; 

It’s early yet for spring ; 

There’s that long town of white to cross 
Before the blackbirds sing. 

It can’t be dying, — it’s too rouge, — 

The dead shall go in white. 

So sunset shuts my question down 
With clasps of chrysolite. 


XLVI I 



HE gentian weaves her fringes. 


A The maple’s loom is red. 
My departing blossoms 
Obviate parade. 

A brief, but patient illness, 

An hour to prepare; 

And one, below this morning, 
Is where the angels are. 

It was a short procession, — 
The bobolink was there, 

An aged bee addressed us, 
And then we knelt in prayer. 


NATURE 


We trust that she was willing,— 
We ask that we may be. 

Summer, sister, seraph, 

Let us go with thee! 

In the name of the bee 
And of the butterfly 
And of the breeze, amen! 


XLVIII 

G OD made a little gentian; 

It tried to be a rose 

And failed, and all the summer laughed. 
But just before the snows 
There came a purple creature 
That ravished all the hill; 

And summer hid her forehead, 

And mockery was still. 

The frosts were her condition; 

The Tyrian would not come 
Until the North evoked it. 

“ Creator! shall I bloom ? ” 


XLIX 

B ESIDES the autumn poets sing, 
A few prosaic days 
A little this side of the snow 
And that side of the haze. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


A few incisive mornings, 

A few ascetic eves, — 

Gone Mr. Bryant’s golden-rod, 
And Mr. Thomson’s sheaves. 

Still is the bustle in the brook, 
Sealed are the spicy valves; 
Mesmeric fingers softly touch 
The eyes of many elves. 

Perhaps a squirrel may remain, 
My sentiments to share. 

Grant me, O Lord, a sunny mind, 
Thy windy will to bear! 


L 

I T sifts from leaden sieves, 

It powders all the wood, 

It fills with alabaster wool 
The wrinkles of the road. 

It makes an even face 
Of mountain and of plain, — 
Unbroken forehead from the east 
Unto the east again. 

It reaches to the fence, 

It wraps it, rail by rail, 

Till it is lost in fleeces; 

It flings a crystal veil 

[106] 


NATURE 


On stump and stack and stem, — 

The summer’s empty room, 

Acres of seams where harvests were, 
Recordless, but for them. 

It ruffles wrists of posts, 

As ankles of a queen, — 

Then stills its artisans like ghosts, 
Denying they have been. 


LI 

N O brigadier throughout the year 
So civic as the Jay. 

A neighbor and a warrior too, 

With shrill felicity 

Pursuing winds that censure us 
A February day, 

The brother of the universe 
Was never blown away. 

The snow and he are intimate; 

I’ve often seen them play 
When heaven looked upon us all 
With such severity, 

I felt apology were due 
To an insulted sky, 

Whose pompous frown was nutriment 
To their temerity. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


The pillow of this daring head 
Is pungent evergreens ; 

His larder — terse and militant — 
Unknown, refreshing things; 

His character a tonic, 

His future a dispute ; 

Unfair an immortality 
That leaves this neighbor out. 


LII 

N EW feet within my garden go. 
New fingers stir the sod; 

A troubadour upon the elm 
Betrays the solitude. 

New children play upon the green, 
New weary sleep below; 

And still the pensive spring returns. 
And still the punctual snow! 


LIII 

P INK, small, and punctual. 

Aromatic, low, 

Covert in April, 

Candid in May, 


[108] 


NATURE 


Dear to the moss, 
Known by the knoll, 
Next to the robin 
In every human soul. 

Bold little beauty, 
Bedecked with thee, 
Nature forswears 
Antiquity. 

(With the first Arbutus.) 


LIV 



HE murmur of a bee 


-I- A witchcraft yieldeth me. 
If any ask me why, 

’T were easier to die 
Than tell. 

The red upon the hill 
Taketh away my will; 

If anybody sneer, 

Take care, for God is here, 
That’s all. 

The breaking of the day 
Addeth to my degree; 

If any ask me how, 

Artist, who drew me so. 

Must tell! 


[109] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


LV 


P ERHAPS you’d like to buy a flower ? 

But I could never sell. 

If you would like to borrow 
Until the daffodil 

Unties her yellow bonnet 
Beneath the village door, 

Until the bees, from clover rows 
Their hock and sherry draw, 

Why, I will lend until just then, 

But not an hour more! 


LVI 



HE pedigree of honey 


A Does not concern the bee; 
A clover, any time, to him 
Is aristocracy. 


LVI I 


S OME keep the Sabbath going to church; 

I keep it staying at home, 

With a bobolink for a chorister, 

And an orchard for a dome. 


[no] 


NATURE 


Some keep the Sabbath in surplice; 

I just wear my wings, 

And instead of tolling the bell for church, 
Our little sexton sings. 

God preaches, — a noted clergyman,— 
And the sermon is never long; 

So instead of getting to heaven at last, 

I’m going all along! 


LVIII 


T HE bee is not afraid of me, 
I know the butterfly; 

The pretty people in the woods 
Receive me cordially. 


The brooks laugh louder when I come, 
The breezes madder play. 

Wherefore, mine eyes, thy silver mists? 
Wherefore, O summer's day? 


LIX 

S OME rainbow coming from the fair! 

Some vision of the World Cashmere 
I confidently see! 

Or else a peacock’s purple train, 

Feather by feather, on the plain 
Fritters itself away! 

[in] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

The dreamy butterflies bestir, 
Lethargic pools resume the whir 
Of last year’s sundered tune. 

From some old fortress on the sun 
Baronial bees march, one by one, 

In murmuring platoon! 

The robins stand as thick to-day 
As flakes of snow stood yesterday, 
On fence and roof and twig. 

The orchis binds her feather on 
For her old lover, Don the Sun, 
Revisiting the bog! 

Without commander, countless, still, 
The regiment of wood and hill 
In bright detachment stand. 

Behold! Whose multitudes are these 
The children of whose turbaned seas, 
Or what Circassian land? 


LX 

T HE grass so little has to do, — 
A sphere of simple green, 
With only butterflies to brood, 

And bees to entertain, 

And stir all day to pretty tunes 
The breezes fetch along, 

And hold the sunshine in its lap 
And bow to everything; 


NATURE 


And thread the dews all night, like pearls, 
And make itself so fine,— 

A duchess were too common 
For such a noticing. 

And even when it dies, to pass 
In odors so divine, 

As lowly spices gone to sleep, 

Or amulets of pine. 

And then to dwell in sovereign barns, 

And dream the days away, — 

The grass so little has to do, 

I wish I were a hay! 


LXI 


A LITTLE road not made of man, 
Enabled of the eye, 

Accessible to thill of bee, 

Or cart of butterfly. 


If town it have, beyond itself, 
’T is that I cannot say; 

I only sigh, — no vehicle 
Bears me along that way. 


LXII 


A DROP fell on the apple tree. 
Another on the roof; 

A half a dozen kissed the eaves, 
And made the gables laugh. 


POEMS ©F EMILY DICKINSON 

A few went out to help the brook, 
That went to help the sea. 

Myself conjectured, Were they pearls, 
What necklaces could be! 


The dust replaced in hoisted roads, 
The birds jocoser sung; 

The sunshine threw his hat away, 
The orchards spangles hung. 

The breezes brought dejected lutes, 
And bathed them in the glee; 

The East put out a single flag, 

And signed the fete away. 


LXIII 


A SOMETHING in a summer’s day, 
As slow her flambeaux burn away, 
Which solemnizes me. 


A something in a summer’s noon,— 
An azure depth, a wordless tune, 
Transcending ecstasy. 


And still within a summer’s night 
A something so transporting bright, 
I clap my hands to see; 


NATURE 


Then veil my too inspecting face, 

Lest such a subtle, shimmering grace 
Flutter too far for me. 

The wizard-fingers never rest, 

The purple brook within the breast 
Still chafes its narrow bed; 

Still rears the East her amber flag, 

Guides still the sun along the crag 
His caravan of red, 

Like flowers that heard the tale of dews, 
But never deemed the dripping prize 
Awaited their low brows; 

Or bees, that thought the summer’s name 
Some rumor of delirium 
No summer could for them; 

Or Arctic creature, dimly stirred 
By tropic hint, — some travelled bird 
Imported to the wood; 

Or wind’s bright signal to the ear, 

Making that homely and severe, 

Contented, known, before 

The heaven unexpected came, 

To lives that thought their worshipping 
A too presumptuous psalm. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


LXIV 



HIS is the land the sunset washes, 


A These are the banks of the Yellow Sea 
Where it rose, or whither it rushes, 

These are the western mystery! 

Night after night her purple traffic 
Strews the landing with opal bales; 
Merchantmen poise upon horizons, 

Dip, and vanish with fairy sails. 


LXV 


L IKE trains of cars on tracks of plush 
* I hear the level bee: 

A jar across the flowers goes, 

Their velvet masonry 

Withstands until the sweet assault 
Their chivalry consumes, 

While he, victorious, tilts away 
To vanquish other blooms. 

His feet are shod with gauze, 

His helmet is of gold; 

His breast, a single onyx 
With chrysoprase, inlaid. 

His labor is a chant, 

His idleness a tune; 

Oh, for a bee’s experience 
Of clovers and of noon! 


[116] 


NATURE 


LXVI 

T HERE is a flower that bees prefer, 
And butterflies desire; 

To gain the purple democrat 
The humming-birds aspire. 

And whatsoever insect pass, 

A honey bears away 
Proportioned to his several dearth 
And her capacity. 

Her face is rounder than the moon, 
And ruddier than the gown 
Of orchis in the pasture, 

Or rhododendron worn. 

She doth not wait for June; 

Before the world is green 
Her sturdy little countenance 
Against the wind is seen, 

Contending with the grass, 

Near kinsman to herself, 

For privilege of sod and sun, 

Sweet litigants for life. 

And when the hills are full, 

And newer fashions blow, 

Doth not retract a single spice 
For pang of jealousy. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


Her public is the noon, 

Her providence the sun, 

Her progress by the bee proclaimed 
In sovereign, swerveless tune. 

The bravest of the host, 
Surrendering the last, 

Nor even of defeat aware 
When cancelled by the frost. 


LX VII 


P RESENTIMENT is that long shadow on the lawn 
Indicative that suns go down; 

The notice to the startled grass 
That darkness is about to pass. 


LXVIII 

A S children bid the guest good-night, 
And then reluctant turn, 

My flowers raise their pretty lips, 

Then put their nightgowns on. 

As children caper when they wake, 
Merry that it is morn, 

My flowers from a hundred cribs 
Will peep, and prance again. 

[118] 


NATURE 


LXIX 


ANGELS in the early morning 
-tl* May be seen the dews among, 
Stooping, plucking, smiling, flying: 
Do the buds to them belong? 


Angels when the sun is hottest 
May be seen the sands among, 
Stooping, plucking, sighing, flying; 
Parched the flowers they bear along. 


LXX 

S O bashful when I spied her, 

So pretty, so ashamed! 

So hidden in her leaflets, 

Lest anybody find; 

So breathless till I passed her, 

So helpless when I turned 

And bore her, struggling, blushing, 

Her simple haunts beyond! 


For whom I robbed the dingle, 
For whom betrayed the dell, 
Many will doubtless ask me, 
But I shall never tell! 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

LXXI 

I T makes no difference abroad, 
The seasons fit the same, 

The mornings blossom into noons, 
And split their pods of flame. 


Wild-flowers kindle in the woods, 
The brooks brag all the day; 

No blackbird bates his jargoning 
For passing Calvary. 


Auto-da-fe and judgment 
Are nothing to the bee; 

His separation from his rose 
To him seems misery. 


LXXII 

T HE mountain sat upon the plain 
In his eternal chair, 

His observation omnifold, 

His inquest everywhere. 

The seasons prayed around his knees, 
Like children round a sire: 
Grandfather of the days is he, 

Of dawn the ancestor. 


NATURE 


LXXIII 

T ’LL tell you how the sun rose,— 
-*■ A ribbon at a time. 

The steeples swam in amethyst, 

The news like squirrels ran. 

The hills untied their bonnets, 

The bobolinks begun. 

Then I said softly to myself, 

“ That must have been the sun! ” 


But how he set, I know not. 

There seemed a purple stile 
Which little yellow boys and girls 
Were climbing all the while 

Till when they reached the other side, 

A dominie in gray 

Put gently up the evening bars, 

And led the flock away. 


LXXIV 


T HE butterfly’s assumption-gown, 
In chrysoprase apartments hung, 
This afternoon put on. 


How condescending to descend, 
And be of buttercups the friend 
In a New England town! 

[I2l] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


LXXV 


O F all the sounds despatched abroad, 
There’s not a charge to me 
Like that old measure in the boughs, 

That phraseless melody 

The wind does, working like a hand 
Whose fingers comb the sky, 

Then quiver down, with tufts of tune 
Permitted gods and me. 

When winds go round and round in bands, 
And thrum upon the door, 

And birds take places overhead. 

To bear them orchestra, 

I crave him grace, of summer boughs, 

If such an outcast be, 

He never heard that fleshless chant 
Rise solemn in the tree, 

As if some caravan of sound 
On deserts, in the sky. 

Had broken rank, 

Then knit, and passed 
In seamless company. 


LXXVI 



PPARENTLY with no surprise 


To any happy flower, 


The frost beheads it at its play 
In accidental power. 


NATURE 


The blond assassin passes on, 
The sun proceeds unmoved 
To measure off another day 
For an approving God. 


LXXVII 


v I A WAS later when the summer went 
A Than when the cricket came, 
And yet we knew that gentle clock 
Meant nought but going home. 


’T was sooner when the cricket went 
Than when the winter came, 

Yet that pathetic pendulum 
Keeps esoteric time. 


LXXVIII 

T HESE are the days when birds come back, 
A very few, a bird or two, 

To take a backward look. 

These are the days when skies put on 
The old, old sophistries of June,— 

A blue and gold mistake. 

Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee, 

Almost thy plausibility 
Induces my belief, 


[123] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


Till ranks of seeds their witness bear, 
And softly through the altered air 
Hurries a timid leaf ! 

Oh, sacrament of summer days, 

Oh, last communion in the haze, 
Permit a child to join, 

Thy sacred emblems to partake, 

Thy consecrated bread to break, 

Taste thine immortal wine! 


LXXIX 



HE morns are meeker than they were, 


A The nuts are getting brown; 
The berry’s cheek is plumper, 

The rose is out of town. 

The maple wears a gayer scarf, 
The field a scarlet gown. 

Lest I should be old-fashioned, 

I ’ll put a trinket on. 


LXXX 



HE sky is low, the clouds are mean, 


A A travelling flake of snow 
Across a barn or through a rut 
Debates if it will go. 


[124] 


NATURE 


A narrow wind complains all day 
How some one treated him; 

Nature, like us, is sometimes caught 
Without her diadem. 

LXXXI 

I THINK the hemlock likes to stand 
Upon a marge of snow; 

It suits his own austerity, 

And satisfies an awe 

That men must slake in wilderness, 
Or in the desert cloy, — 

An instinct for the hoar, the bald, 
Lapland’s necessity. 

The hemlock’s nature thrives on cold; 
The gnash of northern winds 
Is sweetest nutriment to him, 

His best Norwegian wines. 

To satin races he is nought; 

But children on the Don 
Beneath his tabernacles play, 

And Dnieper wrestlers run. 


LXXXII 

HERE’S a certain slant of light, 



-i- On winter afternoons, 
That oppresses, like the weight 
Of cathedral tunes. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

Heavenly hurt it gives us; 

We can find no scar, 

But internal difference 
Where the meanings are. 

None may teach it anything, 

’T is the seal, despair, — 

An imperial affliction 
Sent us of the air. 

When it comes, the landscape listens, 
Shadows hold their breath; 

When it goes, ’t is like the distance 
On the look of death. 


LXXXIII 

T HE springtime’s pallid landscape 
Will glow like bright bouquet, 
Though drifted deep in parian 
The village lies to-day. 

The lilacs, bending many a year, 

With purple load will hang; 

The bees will not forget the tune 
Their old forefathers sang. 

The rose will redden in the bog, 

The aster on the hill 
Her everlasting fashion set, 

And covenant gentians frill, 


[126] 


NATURE 


Till summer folds her miracle 
As women do their gown, 
Or priests adjust the symbols 
When sacrament is done. 


LXXXIV 

S HE slept beneath a tree 
Remembered but by me. 
I touched her cradle mute; 
She recognized the foot, 

Put on her carmine suit, — 
And see! 

(With a Tulip.) 


LXXXV 

A LIGHT exists in spring 

Not present on the year 
At any other period. 

When March is scarcely here 

A color stands abroad 
On solitary hills 
That science cannot overtake, 

But human nature feels. 

It waits upon the lawn; 

It shows the furthest tree 
Upon the furthest slope we know; 
It almost speaks to me. 


[127] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

Then, as horizons step, 

Or noons report away, 

Without the formula of sound, 

It passes, and we stay: 

A quality of loss 

Affecting our content, 

As trade had suddenly encroached 
Upon a sacrament. 


LXXXVI 

A LADY red upon the hill 

Her annual secret keeps; 

A lady white within the field 
In placid lily sleeps! 

The tidy breezes with their brooms 
Sweep vale, and hill, and tree! 
Prithee, my pretty housewives! 

Who may expected be? 

The neighbors do not yet suspect! 

The woods exchange a smile — 
Orchard, and buttercup, and bird — 

In such a little while! 

. And yet how still the landscape stands, 
How nonchalant the wood, 

As if the resurrection 
Were nothing very odd! 


[128] 


NATURE 




LXXXVII 

D EAR March, come in! 

How glad I am! 

I looked for you before. 

Put down your hat — 

You must have walked — 

How out of breath you are! 

Dear March, how are you ? 

And the rest? 

Did you leave Nature well? 

Oh, March, come right upstairs with me, 
I have so much to tell! 

I got your letter, and the bird’s; 

The maples never knew 

That you were coming, — I declare, 

How red their faces grew! 

But, March, forgive me — 

And all those hills 
You left for me to hue; 

There was no purple suitable, 

You took it all with you. 

Who knocks ? That April! 

Lock the door! 

I will not be pursued! 

He stayed away a year, to call 
When I am occupied. 

But trifles look so trivial 
As soon as you have come, 

That blame is just as dear as praise 
And praise as mere as blame. 

[129] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


LXXXVIII 

W E like March, his shoes are purple. 
He is new and high; 

Makes he mud for dog and peddler. 

Makes he forest dry; 

Knows the adder’s tongue his coming, 

And begets her spot. 

Stands the sun so close and mighty 
That our minds are hot. 

News is he of all the others; 

Bold it were to die 
With the blue-birds buccaneering 
On his British sky. 

LXXXIX 

N OT knowing when the dawn will come 
I open every door; 

Or has it feathers like a bird, 

Or billows like a shore ? 


XC 


A MURMUR in the trees to note. 
Not loud enough for wind; 

A star not far enough to seek, 

Nor near enough to find; 

A long, long yellow on the lawn, 

A hubbub as of feet; 

Not audible, as ours to us, 

But dapperer, more sweet; 


NATURE 


A hurrying home of little men 
To houses unperceived,— 

All this, and more, if I should tell, 

Would never be believed. 

Of robins in the trundle bed 
How many I espy 

Whose nightgowns could not hide the wings, 
Although I heard them try! 

But then I promised ne’er to tell; 

How could I break my word? 

So go your way and I ’ll go mine, — 

No fear you ’ll miss the road. 

XCI 

M ORNING is the place for dew, 

Corn is made at noon, 

After dinner light for flowers, 

Dukes for setting sun! 

XCII 

T O my quick ear the leaves conferred; 

The bushes they were bells; 

I could not find a privacy 
From Nature’s sentinels. 

In cave if I presumed to hide, 

The walls began to tell; 

Creation seemed a mighty crack 
To make me visible. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XCIII 

A SEPAL, petal, and a thorn 

Upon a common summer’s morn, 
A flash of dew, a bee or two, 

A breeze 

A caper in the trees, — 

And I’m a rose! 


XCIV 


H IGH from the earth I heard a bird; 

He trod upon the trees 
As he esteemed them trifles, 

And then he spied a breeze. 

And situated softly 
Upon a pile of wind 
Which in a perturbation 
Nature had left behind. 

A joyous-going fellow 
I gathered from his talk, 

Which both of benediction 
And badinage partook, 

Without apparent burden, 

I learned, in leafy wood 
He was the faithful father 
Of a dependent brood; 

And this untoward transport 
His remedy for care,-— 

A contrast to our respites. 

How different we are! 


[132] 


NATURE 


xcv 

T HE spider as an artist 

Has never been employed 
Though his surpassing merit 
Is freely certified 

By every broom and Bridget 
Throughout a Christian land. 
Neglected son of genius, 

I take thee by the hand. 


XCVI 

W HAT mystery pervades a well! 

The water lives so far, 

Like neighbor from another world 
Residing in a jar. 

The grass does not appear afraid; 

I often wonder he 
Can stand so close and look so bold 
At what is dread to me. 

Related somehow they may be,— 
The sedge stands next the sea, 
Where he is floorless, yet of fear 
No evidence gives he. 

But nature is a stranger yet; 

The ones that cite her most 
Have never passed her haunted house, 
Nor simplified her ghost. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


To pity those that know her not 
Is helped by the regret 
That those who know her, know her less 
The nearer her they get. 


XCVII 

T O make a prairie it takes a clover 
and one bee,— 

One clover, and a bee, 

And revery. 

The revery alone will do 
If bees are few. 


XCVIII 

TT’S like the light,— 

A A fashionless delight, 
It’s like the bee, — 

A dateless melody. 

It’s like the woods, 
Private like breeze, 
Phraseless, yet it stirs 
The proudest trees. 

It ’s like the morning, — 
Best when it’s done, — 
The everlasting clocks 
Chime noon. 


NATURE 


XCIX 


A DEW sufficed itself 
And satisfied a leaf, 
And felt, “ how vast a destiny! 
How trivial is life! ” 


The sun went out to work, 

The day went out to play, 

But not again that dew was seen 
By physiognomy. 

Whether by day abducted, 

Or emptied by the sun 
Into the sea, in passing. 

Eternally unknown. 


C 

H IS bill an auger is, 

His head, a cap and frill. 
He laboreth at every tree,— 

A worm his utmost goal. 


Cl 

S WEET is the swamp with its secrets, 
Until we meet a snake; 

’T is then we sigh for houses, 

And our departure take 

[135] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


At that enthralling gallop 
That only childhood knows. 
A snake is summer’s treason, 
And guile is where it goes. 


CII 


C OULD I but ride indefinite, 
As doth the meadow-bee, 
And visit only where I liked, 
And no man visit me, 


And flirt all day with buttercups, 
And marry whom I may, 

And dwell a little everywhere, 

Or better, run away 

With no police to follow, 

Or chase me if I do, 

Till I should jump peninsulas 
To get away from you,— 


I said, but just to be a bee 
Upon a raft of air, 

And row in nowhere all day long, 
And anchor off the bar, — 

What liberty! So captives deem 
Who tight in dungeons are. 

[136] 


NATURE 


cm 

T HE moon was but a chin of gold 
A night or two ago, 

And now she turns her perfect face 
Upon the world below. 

Her forehead is of amplest blond; 

Her cheek like beryl stone; 

Her eye unto the summer dew 
The likest I have known. 

Her lips of amber never part; 

But what must be the smile 
Upon her friend she could bestow 
Were such her silver will! 

And what a privilege to be 
But the remotest star! 

For certainly her way might pass 
Beside your twinkling door. 

Her bonnet is the firmament, 

The universe her shoe, 

The stars the trinkets at her belt, 

Her dimities of blue. 


CIV 

T HE bat is dun with wrinkled wings 
Like fallow article, 

And not a song pervades his lips, 

Or none perceptible. 


[137] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


His small umbrella, quaintly halved, 
Describing in the air 

An arc alike inscrutable,— 

Elate philosopher! 

Deputed from what firmament 
Of what astute abode, 

Empowered with what malevolence 
Auspiciously withheld. 

To his adroit Creator 

Ascribe no less the praise; 

Beneficent, believe me, 

His eccentricities. 


CV 

Y OU ’VE seen balloons set, have n’t you ? 

So stately they ascend 
It is as swans discarded you 
For duties diamond. 

Their liquid feet go softly out 
Upon a sea of blond ; 

They spurn the air as’t were to mean 
For creatures so renowned. 

Their ribbons just beyond the eye, 

They struggle some for breath, 

And yet the crowd applauds below; 

They would not encore death. 


[138] 


NATURE 


The gilded creature strains and spins, 
Trips frantic in a tree, 

Tears open her imperial veins 
And tumbles in the sea. 

The crowd retire with an oath 
The dust in streets goes down, 

And clerks in counting-rooms observe, 
“ ’T was only a balloon.” 


CVI 


T HE cricket sang, 

And set the sun, 

And workmen finished, one by one. 
Their seam the day upon. 

The low grass loaded with the dew, 
The twilight stood as strangers do 
With hat in hand, polite and new, 

To stay as if, or go. 

A vastness, as a neighbor, came,— 
A wisdom without face or name, 

A peace, as hemispheres at home,— 
And so the night became. 


CVII 


D RAB habitation of whom? 

Tabernacle or tomb, 

Or dome of worm, 

Or porch of gnome, 

Or some elf’s catacomb? 

(Sent with a cocoon to her little nephew.) 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


CVIII 

A SLOOP of amber slips away 
Upon an ether sea, 

And wrecks- in peace a purple tar. 
The son of ecstasy. 


CIX 


O F bronze and blaze 

The north, to-night! 
So adequate its forms, 

So preconcerted with itself, 
So distant to alarms, — 
An unconcern so sovereign 
To universe, or me, 

It paints my simple spirit 
With tints of majesty, 

Till I take vaster attitudes, 
And strut upon my stem, 
Disdaining men and oxygen, 
For arrogance of them. 


My splendors are menagerie; 

But their competeless show 
Will entertain the centuries 
When I am, long ago, 

An island in dishonored grass, 
Whom none but daisies know. 


NATURE 


cx 

H OW the old mountains drip with sunset. 
And the brake of dun! 

How the hemlocks are tipped in tinsel 
By the wizard sun! 

How the old steeples hand the scarlet, 

Till the ball is full,— 

Have I the lip of the flamingo 
That I dare to tell? 

Then, how the fire ebbs like billows, 
Touching all the grass 
With a departing, sapphire feature, 

As if a duchess pass! 

How a small dusk crawls on the village 
Till the houses blot; 

And the odd flambeaux no men carry 
Glimmer on the spot! 

Now it is night in nest and kennel, 

And where was the wood, 

Just a dome of abyss is nodding 
Into solitude! — 

These are the visions baffled Guido; 

Titian never told; 

Domenichino dropped the pencil, 

Powerless to unfold. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


CXI 

T HE murmuring of bees has ceased 
But murmuring of some 
Posterior, prophetic, 

Has simultaneous come,— 

The lower metres of the year, 

When nature’s laugh is done,— 

The Revelations of the book 
Whose Genesis is June. 


PART THREE 


LOVE 


TT ’S all I have to bring to-day, 
This, and my heart beside, 

This, and my heart, and all the fields, 
And all the meadows unde. 

Be sure you count, should I forget, — 
Some one the sun could tell, — 

This, and my heart, and all the bees 
Which in the clover dwell. 


I 


M INE by the right of the white election! 

Mine by the royal seal! 

Mine by the sign in the scarlet prison 
Bars cannot conceal! 

Mine, here in vision and in veto! 

Mine, by the grave’s repeal 
Titled, confirmed, — delirious charter! 
Mine, while the ages steal! 


II 


OU left me, sweet, two legacies, — 



A legacy of love 

A Heavenly Father would content. 
Had He the offer of; 

You left me boundaries of pain 
Capacious as the sea, 

Between eternity and time, 

Your consciousness and me. 


Ill 

A LTER? When the hills do. 

■ Falter? When the sun 
Question if his glory 
Be the perfect one. 

[145] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


Surfeit? When the daffodil 
Doth of the dew: 

Even as herself, O friend! 

I will of you! 


IV 


E LYSIUM is as far as to 
The very nearest room, 
If in that room a friend await 
Felicity or doom. 


What fortitude the soul contains, 
That it can so endure 
The accent of a coming foot. 
The opening of a door! 


V 

D OUBT me, my dim companion! 

Why, God would be content 
With but a fraction of the love 
Poured thee without a stint. 

The whole of me, forever, 

What more the woman can, — 

Say quick, that I may dower thee 
With last delight I own! 

It cannot be my spirit, 

For that was thine before; 

I ceded all of dust I knew, — 

What opulence the more 


[146] 


LOVE 


Had I, a humble maiden, 
Whose farthest of degree 
Was that she might 
Some distant heaven, 
Dwell timidly with thee! 


VI 

I F you were coming in the fall, 

I’d brush the summer by 
With half a smile and half a spurn, 

As housewives do a fly. 

If I could see you in a year, 

I’d wind the months in balls, 

And put them each in separate drawers, 
Until their time befalls. 

If only centuries delayed, 

I*d count them on my hand, 
Subtracting till my fingers dropped 
Into Van Diemen’s land. 

If certain, when this life was out, 

That yours and mine should be, 

I’d toss it yonder like a rind, 

And taste eternity. 

But now, all ignorant of the length 
Of time’s uncertain wing, 

It goads me, like the goblin bee. 

That will not state its sting. 


[147] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


VII 

I HIDE myself within my flower. 
That wearing on your breast, 
You, unsuspecting, wear me too — 
And angels know the rest. 

I hide myself within my flower, 
That, fading from your vase, 

You, unsuspecting, feel for me 
Almost a loneliness. 


VIII 

T HAT I did always love, 
I bring thee proof: 
That till I loved 
I did not love enough. 


That I shall love alway, 

I offer thee 
That love is life, 

And life hath immortality. 

This, dost thou doubt, sweet ? 
Then have I 
Nothing to show 
But Calvary. 


[148] 


LOVE 


IX 


H AVE you got a brook in your little heart, 
Where bashful flowers blow, 

And blushing birds go down to drink, 

And shadows tremble so ? 

And nobody knows, so still it flows, 

That any brook is there; 

And yet your little draught of life 
Is daily drunken there. 

Then look out for the little brook in March, 
When the rivers overflow, 

And the snows come hurrying from the hills, 
And the bridges often go. 

And later, in August it may be, 

When the meadows parching lie, 

Beware, lest this little brook of life 
Some burning noon go dry! 


X 


5 if some little Arctic flower, 



Upon the polar hem, 

Went wandering down the latitudes, 
Until it puzzled came 
To continents of summer, 

To firmaments of sun, 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

To strange, bright crowds of flowers, 
And birds of foreign tongue! 

I say, as if this little flower 
To Eden wandered in — 

What then ? Why, nothing, only 
Your inference therefrom! 


XI 


M Y river runs to thee: 

Blue sea, wilt welcome me ? 

My river waits reply. 

Oh sea, look graciously! 

I ’ll fetch thee brooks 
From spotted nooks, — 

Say, sea. 

Take me! 


XII 

1 CANNOT live with you, 
It would be life, 

And life is over there 
Behind the shelf 

The sexton keeps the key to, 
Putting up 

Our life, his porcelain, 

Like a cup 


LOVE 


Discarded of the housewife, 
Quaint or broken; 

A newer Sevres pleases, 

Old ones crack. 

I could not die with you, 

For one must wait 

To shut the other’s gaze down,— 

You could not. 

And I, could I stand by 
And see you freeze, 

Without my right of frost, 

Death’s privilege? 

Nor could I rise with you, 

Because your face 
Would put out Jesus’, 

That new grace 

Glow plain and foreign 
On my homesick eye, 

Except that you, than he 
Shone closer by. 

They’d judge us — how ? 

For you served Heaven, you know, 
Or sought to; 

I could not. 

Because you saturated sight, 

And I had no more eyes 
For sordid excellence 
As Paradise. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


And were you lost, I would be, 
Though my name 
Rang loudest 
On the heavenly fame. 

And were you saved, 

And I condemned to be 
Where you were not, 

That self were hell to me. 

So we must keep apart, 

You there, I here, 

With just the door ajar 
That oceans are, 

And prayer, 

And that pale sustenance, 
Despair! 


XIII 

T HERE came a day at summer’s full 
Entirely for me; 

I thought that such were for the saints, 
Where revelations be. 

The sun, as common, went abroad, 

The flowers, accustomed, blew, 

As if no sail the solstice passed 
That maketh all things new. 

[152] 


LOVE 


The time was scarce profaned by speech; 
The symbol of a word 
Was needless, as at sacrament 
The wardrobe of our Lord. 

Each was to each the sealed church, 
Permitted to commune this time, 

Lest we too awkward show 
At supper of the Lamb. 

The hours slid fast, as hours will, 
Clutched tight by greedy hands; 

So faces on two decks look back, 

Bound to opposing lands. 

And so, when all the time had failed, 
Without external sound, 

Each bound the other’s crucifix. 

We gave no other bond. 

Sufficient troth that we shall rise — 
Deposed, at length, the grave — 

To that new marriage, justified 
Through Calvaries of Love! 


XIV 

I ’M ceded, I’ve stopped being theirs; 

The name they dropped upon my face 
With water, in the country church, 

Is finished using now, 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


And they can put it with my dolls, 

My childhood, and the string of spools 
I’ve finished threading too. 


Baptized before without the choice, 

But this time consciously, of grace 
Unto supremest name, 

Called to my full, the crescent dropped, 
Existence’s whole arc filled up 
With one small diadem. 

My second rank, too small the first, 
Crowned, crowing on my father’s breast, 
A half unconscious queen; 

But this time, adequate, erect, 

With will to choose or to reject, 

And I choose — just a throne. 


XV 

WAS a long parting, but the time 
A For interview had come; 

Before the judgment-seat of God, 

The last and second time 

These fleshless lovers met, 

A heaven in a gaze, 

A heaven of heavens, the privilege 
Of one another’s eyes. 

[ 154 ] 


LOVE 


No lifetime set on them, 
Apparelled as the new 
Unborn, except they had beheld, 
Born everlasting now. 

Was bridal e’er like this? 

A paradise, the host, 

And cherubim and seraphim 
The most familiar guest. 

XVI 

I ’M wife; I’ve finished that, 
That other state; 

I ’m Czar, I’m woman now: 

It’s safer so. 

How odd the girl’s life looks 
Behind this soft eclipse! 

I think that earth seems so 
To those in heaven now. 

This being comfort, then 
That other kind was pain; 

But why compare? 

I’m wife! stop there! 


XVII 


S HE rose to his requirement, dropped 
The playthings of her life 
To take the honorable work 
Of woman and of wife. 


[155] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

If aught she missed in her new day 
Of amplitude, or awe, 

Or first prospective, or the gold 
In using wore away, 

It lay unmentioned, as the sea 
Develops pearl and weed, 

But only to himself is known 
The fathoms they abide. 


XVIII 


C OME slowly, Eden! 

Lips unused to thee, 
Bashful, sip thy jasmines, 
As the fainting bee, 


Reaching late his flower, 
Round her chamber hums, 
Counts his nectars — enters, 
And is lost in balms! 


XIX 


O F all the souls that stand create 
I have elected one. 

When sense from spirit files away, 
And subterfuge is done; 

[156] 


LOVE 


When that which is and that which was 
Apart, intrinsic, stand, 

And this brief tragedy of flesh 
Is shifted like a sand; 

When figures show their royal front 
And mists are carved away,— 

Behold the atom I preferred 
To all the lists of clay! 


XX 

1 HAVE no life but this, 
To lead it here; 

Nor any death, but lest 
Dispelled from there; 

Nor tie to earths to come, 
Nor action new, 

Except through this extent, 
The realm of you. 


XXI 

Y OUR riches taught me poverty. 

Myself a millionnaire 
In little wealths, — as girls could boast, — 
Till broad as Buenos Ayre, 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


You drifted your dominions 
A different Peru; 

And I esteemed all poverty, 

For life’s estate with you. 

Of mines I little know, myself, 

But just the names of gems,— 

The colors of the commonest; 

And scarce of diadems 

So much that, did I meet the queen, 
Her glory I should know: 

But this must be a different wealth, 

To miss it beggars so. 

I’m sure’t is India all day 
To those who look on you 
Without a stint, without a blame, — 
Might I but be the Jew! 

I’m sure it is Golconda, 

Beyond my power to deem, — 

To have a smile for mine each day, 
How better than a gem! 

At least, it solaces to know 
That there exists a gold, 

Although I prove it just in time 
Its distance to behold! 

It’s far, far treasure to surmise, 

And estimate the pearl 

That slipped my simple fingers through 

While just a girl at school! 


[158] 


LOVE 


XXII 

I GAVE myself to him, 

And took himself for pay. 

The solemn contract of a life 
Was ratified this way. 

The wealth might disappoint, 

Myself a poorer prove 

Than this great purchaser suspect, 

The daily own of Love 

Depreciate the vision; 

But, till the merchant buy, 

Still fable, in the isles of spice. 

The subtle cargoes lie. 

At least, ’t is mutual risk, — 

Some found it mutual gain; 

Sweet debt of Life, — each night to owe. 
Insolvent, every noon. 


XXIII 


G OING to him! Happy letter! Tell him — 
Tell him the page I did n’t write; 

Tell him I only said the syntax, 

And left the verb and the pronoun out. 

Tell him just how the fingers hurried, 

Then how they waded, slow, slow, slow; 

And then you wished you had eyes in your pages, 
So you could see what moved them so. 


# 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


“Tell him it wasn’t a practised writer, 

You guessed, from the way the sentence toiled; 
You could hear the bodice tug, behind you, 

As if it held but the might of a child; 

You almost pitied it, you, it worked so. 

Tell him— No, you may quibble there. 

For it would split his heart to know it, 

And then you and I were silenter. 

“ Tell him night finished before we finished, 

And the old clock kept neighing 4 day! ’ 

And you got sleepy and begged to be ended — 
What could it hinder so, to say ? 

Tell him just how she sealed you, cautious, 

But if he ask where you are hid 
Until to-morrow, — happy letter! 

Gesture, coquette, and shake your head! ” 


XXIV 



HE way I read a letter’s this: 


A ’T is first I lock the door, 
And push it with my fingers next, 
For transport it be sure. 

And then I go the furthest off 
To counteract a knock; 

Then draw my little letter forth 
And softly pick its lock. 


[160] 


LOVE 


Then, glancing narrow at the wall, 
And narrow at the floor, 

For firm conviction of a mouse 
Not exorcised before, 

Peruse how infinite I am 
To — no one that you know! 

And sigh for lack of heaven, — but not 
The heaven the creeds bestow. 


XXV 


W ILD nights! Wild nights! 

Were I with thee, 

Wild nights should be 
Our luxury! 

Futile the winds 
To a heart in port,— 

Done with the compass, 

Done with the chart. 

Rowing in Eden! 

Ah! the sea! 

Might I but moor 
To-night in thee! 


XXVI 


T HE night was wide, and furnished scant 
With but a single star, 

That often as a cloud it met 
Blew out itself for fear. 


[161] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


The wind pursued the little bush, 
And drove away the leaves 
November left; then clambered up 
And fretted in the eaves. 

No squirrel went abroad; 

A dog’s belated feet 

Like intermittent plush were heard 

Adown the empty street. 

To feel if blinds be fast, 

And closer to the fire 

Her little rocking-chair to draw. 

And shiver for the poor, 

The housewife’s gentle task. 

“ How pleasanter,” said she 
Unto the sofa opposite, 

“ The sleet than May — no thee! ” 


XXVII 

D ID the harebell loose her girdle 
To the lover bee, 

Would the bee the harebell hallow 
Much as formerly ? 

Did the paradise, persuaded, 

Yield her moat of pearl, 

Would the Eden be an Eden, 

Or the earl an. earl ? 


LOVE 


XXVIII 


CHARM invests a face 


V. Imperfectly beheld,— 
The lady dare not lift her veil 
For fear it be dispelled. 

But peers beyond her mesh, 
And wishes, and denies, — 
Lest interview annul a want 
That image satisfies. 


XXIX 



HE rose did caper on her cheek, 


-i- Her bodice rose and fell, 

Her pretty speech, like drunken men. 
Did stagger pitiful. 

Her fingers fumbled at her work, — 
Her needle would not go; 

What ailed so smart a little maid 
It puzzled me to know, 

Till opposite I spied a cheek 
That bore another rose; 

Just opposite, another speech 
That like the drunkard goes; 

A vest that, like the bodice, danced 
To the immortal tune,— 

Till those two troubled little clocks 
Ticked softly into one. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XXX 


I N lands I never saw, they say, 
Immortal Alps look down, 
Whose bonnets touch the firmament, 
Whose sandals touch the town, — 

Meek at whose everlasting feet 
A myriad daisies play. 

Which, sir, are you, and which am I, 
Upon an August day ? 


XXXI 



HE moon is distant from the sea, 


A And yet with amber hands 
She leads him, docile as a boy, 

Along appointed sands. 

He never misses a degree; 

Obedient to her eye, 

He comes just so far toward the town, 
Just so far goes away. 

Oh, Signor, thine the amber hand, 
And mine the distant sea, — 

Obedient to the least command 
Thine eyes impose on me. 


[164] 


LOVE 


XXXII 

H E put the belt around my life, — 
I heard the buckle snap, 

And turned away, imperial, 

My lifetime folding up 
Deliberate, as a duke would do 
A kingdom’s title-deed,— 

Henceforth a dedicated sort, 

A member of the cloud. 

Yet not too far to come at call, 

And do the little toils 

That make the circuit of the rest, 

And deal occasional smiles 
To lives that stoop to notice mine 
And kindly ask it in, — 

Whose invitation, knew you not 
For whom I must decline? 


XXXIII 

I HELD a jewel in my fingers 
And went to sleep. 

The day was warm, and winds were prosy; 
I said: “’Twill keep.” 

I woke and chid my honest fingers, — 

The gem was gone; 

And now an amethyst remembrance 
Is all I own. 


[165] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XXXIV 


W HAT if I say I shall not wait ? 

What if I burst the fleshly gate 
And pass, escaped, to thee ? 

What if I file this mortal off, 

See where it hurt me, — that’s enough, — 
And wade in liberty? 


They cannot take us any more, — 
Dungeons may call, and guns implore; 
Unmeaning now, to me, 

As laughter was an hour ago, 

Or laces, or a travelling show, 

Or who died yesterday! 


XXXV 

P ROUD of my broken heart since thou didst break it, 
Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee, 

Proud of my night since thou with moons dost slake it, 
Not to partake thy passion, my humility. 


XXXVI 

M Y worthiness is all my doubt, 
His merit all my fear, 
Contrasting which, my qualities 
Do lowlier appear; 


LOVE 


Lest I should insufficient prove 
For his beloved need, 

The chiefest apprehension 
Within my loving creed. 

So I, the undivine abode 
Of his elect content, 

Conform my soul as’t were a church 
Unto her sacrament. 


XXXVII 


L OVE is anterior to life, 
J Posterior to death, 
Initial of creation, and 
The exponent of breath. 


XXXVIII 

O NE blessing had I, than the rest 
So larger to my eyes 
That I stopped gauging, satisfied, 
For this enchanted size. 

It was the limit of my dream, 

The focus of my prayer,— 

A perfect, paralyzing bliss 
Contented as despair. 

[167] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


I knew no more of want or cold, 
Phantasms both become, 

For this new value in the soul, 

Supremest earthly sum. 

The heaven below the heaven above 
Obscured with ruddier hue. 

Life’s latitude leant over-full; 

The judgment perished, too. 

Why joys so scantily disburse, 

Why Paradise defer, 

Why floods are served to us in bowls,— 
I speculate no more. 

XXXIX 

W HEN roses cease to bloom, dear, 
And violets are done, 

When bumble-bees in solemn flight 
Have passed beyond the sun, 

The hand that paused to gather 
Upon this summer’s day 
Will idle lie, in Auburn, — 

Then take my flower, pray! 

XL 

S UMMER for thee grant I may be 
When summer days are flown! 

Thy music still when whippoorwill 
And oriole are done! 


[168] 


LOVE 


For thee to bloom, I ’ll skip the tomb 
And sow my blossoms o’er! 

Pray gather me, Anemone, 

Thy flower forevermore! 


XLI 

S PLIT the lark and you ’ll find the music, 
Bulb after bulb, in silver rolled, 

Scantily dealt to the summer morning, 

Saved for your ear when lutes be old. 

Loose the flood, you shall find it patent, 

Gush after gush, reserved for you; 

Scarlet experiment! sceptic Thomas, 

Now, do you doubt that your bird was true 


XLII 

T O lose thee, sweeter than to gain 
All other hearts I knew. 

’T is true the drought is destitute, 
But then I had the dew! 

The Caspian has its realms of sand. 
Its other realm of sea; 

Without the sterile perquisite 
No Caspian could be. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XLIII 


P OOR little heart! 

Did they forget thee? 
Then dinna care! Then dinna care! 


Proud little heart! 

Did they forsake thee? 
Be debonair! Be debonair! 


Frail little heart! 

I would not break thee: 

Could’st credit me? Could’st credit me? 

Gay little heart! 

Like morning glory 
Thou ’ll wilted be; thou ’ll wilted be! 


XLIV 


T HERE is a word 

Which bears a sword 
Can pierce an armed man. 

It hurls its barbed syllables, — 
At once is mute again. 

But where it fell 
The saved will tell 
On patriotic day, 

Some epauletted brother 
Gave his breath away. 

[170] 


LOVE 


Wherever runs the breathless sun, 
Wherever roams the day, 

There is its noiseless onset, 

There is its victory! 

Behold the keenest marksman! 

The most accomplished shot! 
Time’s sublimest target 
Is a soul “ forgot ”! 


XLV 

I ’VE got an arrow here ; 

Loving the hand that sent it, 

I the dart revere. 

Fell, they will say, in “ skirmish ”! 

Vanquished, my soul will know, 
By but a simple arrow 
Sped by an archer’s bow. 


XLVI 

H E fumbles at your spirit 
As players at the keys 
Before they drop full music on; 

He stuns you by degrees, 

Prepares your brittle substance 
For the ethereal blow, 

By fainter hammers, further heard, 
Then nearer, then so slow 

[171] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


Your breath has time to straighten, 
Your brain to bubble cool,— 
Deals one imperial thunderbolt 
That scalps your naked soul. 


XLVII 

H EART, we will forget him! 

You and I, to-night! 

You may forget the warmth he gave, 
I will forget the light. 

When you have done, pray tell me, 
That I my thoughts may dim; 
Haste! lest while you ’re lagging, 

I may remember him! 


XLVIII 

F ATHER, I bring thee not myself,— 
That were the little load; 

I bring thee the imperial heart 
I had not strength to hold. 


The heart I cherished in my own 
Till mine too heavy grew, 

Yet strangest, heavier since it went, 
Is it too large for you ? 

[172] 


LOVE 


XLIX 

W E outgrow love like other things 
And put it in the drawer, 

Till it an antique fashion shows 
Like costumes grandsires wore. 


L 

N OT with a club the heart is broken, 
Nor with a stone; 

A whip, so small you could not see it, 

I’ve known 

To lash the magic creature 
Till it fell, 

Yet that whip’s name too noble 
Then to tell. 

Magnanimous of bird 
By boy descried, 

To sing unto the stone 
Of which it died. 


LI 

M Y friend must be a bird. 
Because it flies! 

Mortal my friend must be. 
Because it dies! 

Barbs has it, like a bee. 

Ah, curious friend, 

Thou puzzlest me! 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


LII 

H E touched me, so I live to know 
That such a day, permitted so, 
I groped upon his breast. 

It was a boundless place to me, 

And silenced, as the awful sea 
Puts minor streams to rest. 

And now, I’m different from before, 
As if I breathed superior air, 

Or brushed a royal gown; 

My feet, too, that had wandered so, 
My gypsy face transfigured now 
To tenderer renown. 


LIII 

L ET me not mar that perfect dream 
J By an auroral stain, 

But so adjust my daily night 
That it will come again. 

LIV 

I LIVE with him, I see his face; 

I go no more away 
For visitor, or sundown; 

Death's single privacy, 


[174] 


LOVE 


The only one forestalling mine, 

And that by right that he 
Presents a claim invisible, 

No wedlock granted me. 

I live with him, I hear his voice, 

I stand alive to-day 
To witness to the certainty 
Of immortality 

Taught me by Time, — the lower way. 
Conviction every day,— 

That life like this is endless, 

Be judgment what it may. 


LV 

I ENVY seas whereon he rides, 
I envy spokes of wheels 
Of chariots that him convey, 

I envy speechless hills 

That gaze upon his journey; 

How easy all can see 
What is forbidden utterly 
As heaven, unto me! 

I envy nests of sparrows. 

That dot his distant eaves, 

The wealthy fly upon his pane, 
The happy, happy leaves 

[175] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


That just abroad his window 
Have summer’s leave to be. 

The earrings of Pizarro 
Could not obtain for me. 

I envy light that wakes him. 

And bells that boldly ring 
To tell him it is noon abroad,— 
Myself his noon could bring. 

Yet interdict my blossom 
And abrogate my bee, 

Lest noon in everlasting night 
Drop Gabriel and me. 

LVI 

A SOLEMN thing it was, I said, 

A woman white to be, 

And wear, if God should count me fit, 
Her hallowed mystery. 

A timid thing to drop a life 
Into the purple well, 

Too plummetless that it come back 
Eternity until. 


LVI I 


T ITLE divine is mine 
The Wife without 
The Sign. 

Acute degree 

[176] 


LOVE 


Conferred on me — 

Empress of Calvary. 

Royal all but the 
Crown — 

Betrothed, without the swoon 
God gives us women 
When two hold 
Garnet to garnet, 

Gold to gold — 

Born — Bridalled — 
Shrouded — 

In a day 
Tri-Victory — 

“ My Husband ” 

Women say 
Stroking the melody, 

Is this the way? 





PART FOUR 


TIME AND ETERNITY 





























I 


O NE dignity delays for all, 
One mitred afternoon. 
None can avoid this purple, 
None evade this crown. 

Coach it insures, and footmen. 
Chamber and state and throng; 
Bells, also, in the village, 

As we ride grand along. 

What dignified attendants, 
What service when we pause! 
How loyally at parting 
Their hundred hats they raise! 

How pomp surpassing ermine, 
When simple you and I 
Present our meek escutcheon. 
And claim the rank to die! 


II 

D ELAYED till she had ceased to know. 
Delayed till in its vest of snow 
Her loving bosom lay. 

An hour behind the fleeting breath, 

Later by just an hour than death,— 

Oh, lagging yesterday! 

[iBi] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

Could she have guessed that it would be; 
Could but a crier of the glee 
Have climbed the distant hill; 

Had not the bliss so slow a pace, — 

Who knows but this surrendered face 
Were undefeated still ? 

Oh, if there may departing be 
Any forgot by victory 
In her imperial round. 

Show them this meek apparelled thing, 
That could not stop to be a king, 

Doubtful if it be crowned! 


Ill 


D eparted to the judgment, 
A mighty afternoon; 

Great clouds like ushers leaning, 
Creation looking on. 


The flesh surrendered, cancelled, 
The bodiless begun; 

Two worlds, like audiences, disperse 
And leave the soul alone. 


IV 


S AFE in their alabaster chambers, 

Untouched by morning and untouched by noon, 
Sleep the meek members of the resurrection, 

Rafter of satin, and roof of stone. 

[182] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine; 
Babbles the bee in a stolid ear; 

Pipe the sweet birds in ignorant cadence, — 

Ah, what sagacity perished here! 

Grand go the years in the crescent above them; 
Worlds scoop their arcs, and firmaments row, 
Diadems drop and Doges surrender, 

Soundless as dots on a disk of snow. 


V 

O N this long storm the rainbow rose, 
On this late morn the sun; 

The clouds, like listless elephants, 
Horizons straggled down. 


The birds rose smiling in their nests, 
The gales indeed were done; 

Alas! how heedless were the eyes 
On whom the summer shone! 


The quiet nonchalance of death 
No daybreak can bestir; 

The slow archangel’s syllables 
Must awaken her. 


[183] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

VI 

M Y cocoon tightens, colors tease, 
I’m feeling for the air; 

A dim capacity for wings 
Degrades the dress I wear. 

A power of butterfly must be 
The aptitude to fly, 

Meadows of majesty concedes 
And easy sweeps of sky. 

So I must baffle at the hint 
And cipher at the sign, 

And make much blunder, if at last 
I take the clew divine. 


VII 

E xultation is the going 

Of an inland soul to sea,— 
Past the houses, past the headlands, 
Into deep eternity! 

Bred as we, among the mountains, 
Can the sailor understand 
The divine intoxication 
Of the first league out from land? 


[184] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


VIII 

L OOK back on time with kindly eyes, 
He doubtless did his best; 

How softly sinks his trembling sun 
In human nature’s west! 


IX 

A TRAIN went through a burial gate, 

A bird broke forth and sang, 

And trilled, and quivered, and shook his throat 
Till all the churchyard rang; 

And then adjusted his little notes, 

And bowed and sang again. 

Doubtless, he thought it meet of him 
To say good-by to men. 


X 

1 DIED for beauty, but was scarce 
Adjusted in the tomb, 

When one who died for truth was lain 
In an adjoining room. 

He questioned softly why I failed? 

“ For beauty,” I replied. 

“ And I for truth, — the two are one; 
We brethren are,” he said. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


And so, as kinsmen met a night, 

We talked between the rooms, 

Until the moss had reached our lips, 
And covered up our names. 


XI 

H OW many times these low feet staggered, 
Only the soldered mouth can tell; 

Try! can you stir the awful rivet? 

Try! can you lift the hasps of steel ? 

Stroke the cool forehead, hot so often. 

Lift, if you can, the listless hair; 

Handle the adamantine fingers 
Never a thimble more shall wear. 

Buzz the dull flies on the chamber window; 
Brave shines the sun through the freckled pane 
Fearless the cobweb swings from the ceiling — 
Indolent housewife, in daisies lain! 


XII 

I LIKE a look of agony, 
Because I know it’s true; 
Men do not sham convulsion, 
Nor simulate a throe. 

[186] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


The eyes glaze once, and that is death. 
Impossible to feign 
The beads upon the forehead 
By homely anguish strung. 


XIII 


T HAT short, potential stir 

That each can make but once, 
That bustle so illustrious 
T is almost consequence, 

Is the eclat of death. 

Oh, thou unknown renown 
That not a beggar would accept, 
Had he the power to spurn! 


XIV 

I WENT to thank her, 

But she slept; 

Her bed a funnelled stone, 

With nosegays at the head and foot, 
That travellers had thrown, 

Who went to thank her; 

But she slept. 

’T was short to cross the sea 
To look upon her like, alive, 

But turning back ’t was slow. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XV 


I ’VE seen a dying eye 

Run round and round a room 
In search of something, as it seemed, 
Then cloudier become; 

And then, obscure with fog, 

And then be soldered down, 

Without disclosing what it be, 

’T were blessed to have seen. 


XVI 



HE clouds their backs together laid, 


A The north begun to push. 

The forests galloped till they fell, 
The lightning skipped like mice; 

The thunder crumbled like a stuff — 
How good to be safe in tombs, 
Where nature’s temper cannot reach, 
Nor vengeance ever comes! 


XVII 

I NEVER saw a moor, 

I never saw the sea; 

Yet know I how the heather looks, 
And what a wave must be. 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


I never spoke with God, 

Nor visited in heaven; 

Yet certain am I of the spot 
As if the chart were given. 


XVIII 

G OD permits industrious angels 
Afternoons to play. 

I met one, — forgot my school-mates, 
All, for him, straightway. 

God calls home the angels promptly 
At the setting sun; 

I missed mine. How dreary marbles, 
After playing Crown! 


XIX 

T O know just how he suffered would be dear; 

To know if any human eyes were near 
To whom he could intrust his wavering gaze, 
Until it settled firm on Paradise. 

To know if he was patient, part content, 

Was dying as he thought, or different; 

Was it a pleasant day to die, 

And did the sunshine face his way? 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


What was his furthest mind, of home, or God, 
Or what the distant say 
At news that he ceased human nature 
On such a day ? 

And wishes, had he any ? 

Just his sigh, accented, 

Had been legible to me. 

And was he confident until 

Ill fluttered out in everlasting well ? 

And if he spoke, what name was best, 

What first, 

What one broke off with 
At the drowsiest? 

Was he afraid, or tranquil? 

Might he know 

How conscious consciousness could grow, 

Till love that was, and love too blest to be, 
Meet — and the junction be Eternity? 


XX 



HE last night that she lived, 


It was a common night, 
Except the dying; this to us 
Made nature different. 

We noticed smallest things, — 
Things overlooked before, 

By this great light upon our minds 
Italicized, as’t were. 


[190] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


That others could exist 
While she must finish quite, 

A jealousy for her arose 
So nearly infinite. 

We waited while she passed; 

It was a narrow time, 

Too jostled were our souls to speak, 
At length the notice came. 

She mentioned, and forgot; 

Then lightly as a reed 

Bent to the water, shivered scarce, 

Consented, and was dead. 

And we, we placed the hair, 

And drew the head erect; 

And then an awful leisure was, 

Our faith to regulate. 


XXI 

N OT in this world to see his face 

Sounds long, until I read the place 
Where this is said to be 
But just the primer to a life 
Unopened, rare, upon the shelf, 

Clasped yet to him and me. 

And yet, my primer suits me so 
I would not choose a book to know 
Than that, be sweeter wise; 

[191] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

Might some one else so learned be, 
And leave me just my A B C, 
Himself could have the skies. 


XXII 


T HE bustle in a house 

The morning after death 
Is solemnest of industries 
Enacted upon earth,— 

The sweeping up the heart, 

And putting love away 
We shall not want to use again 
Until eternity. 


XXIII 

I REASON, earth is short, 
And anguish absolute. 
And many hurt; 

But what of that ? 

I reason, we could die: 

The best vitality 
Cannot excel decay; 

But what of that? 

I reason that in heaven 
Somehow, it will be even, 
Some new equation given; 
But what of that? 


[192] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


XXIV 

TRAID? Of whom am I afraid? 



Not death; for who is he? 
The porter of my father’s lodge 
As much abasheth me. 

Of life? ’T were odd I fear a thing 
That comprehendeth me 
In one or more existences 
At Deity’s decree. 

Of resurrection ? Is the east 
Afraid to trust the morn 
With her fastidious forehead? 

As soon impeach my crown! 


XXV 



HE sun kept setting, setting still; 


A No hue of afternoon 
Upon the village I perceived,— 

From house to house’t was noon. 

The dusk kept dropping, dropping still; 
No dew upon the grass, 

But only on my forehead stopped, 

And wandered in my face. 

My feet kept drowsing, drowsing still, 
My fingers were awake; 

Yet why so little sound myself 
Unto my seeming make? 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


How well I knew the light before! 
I could not see it now. 

T is dying, I am doing; but 
I’m not afraid to know. 


XXVI 


WO swimmers wrestled on the spar 



A Until the morning sun. 

When one turned smiling to the land. 

O God, the other one! 

The stray ships passing spied a face 
Upon the waters borne, 

With eyes in death still begging raised, 
And hands beseeching thrown. 


XXVII 


B ECAUSE I could not stop for Death, 
He kindly stopped for me; 

The carriage held but just ourselves 
And Immortality. 

We slowly drove, he knew no haste, 

And I had put away 
My labor, and my leisure too, 

For his civility. 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


We passed the school where children played 
At wrestling in a ring; 

We passed the fields of gazing grain, 

We passed the setting sun. 

We paused before a house that seemed 
A swelling of the ground; 

The roof was scarcely visible, 

The cornice but a mound. 

Since then’t is centuries; but each 
Feels shorter than the day 
I first surmised the horses’ heads 
Were toward eternity. 


XXVIII 

S HE went as quiet as the dew 
From a familiar flower. 

Not like the dew did she return 
At the accustomed hour! 

She dropt as softly as a star 
From out my summer’s eve; 
Less skillful than Leverrier 
It*s sorer to believe! 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XXIX 


AT last to be identified! 

At last, the lamps upon thy side, 
The rest of life to see! 

Past midnight, past the morning star! 

Past sunrise! Ah! what leagues there are 
Between our feet and day! 


XXX 

E XCEPT to heaven, she is nought; 

Except for angels, lone ; 

Except to some wide-wandering bee, 
A flower superfluous blown; 

Except for winds, provincial; 

Except by butterflies, 

Unnoticed as a single dew 
That on the acre lies. 

The smallest housewife in the grass. 
Yet take her from the lawn, 

And somebody has lost the face 
That made existence home! 


XXXI 

D EATH is a dialogue between 
The spirit and the dust. 

“ Dissolve/' says Death. The Spirit, “ Sir, 
I have another trust." 


[196] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


Death doubts it, argues from the ground. 
The Spirit turns away, 

Just laying off, for evidence, 

An overcoat of clay. 


XXXII 

I T was too late for man, 

But early yet for God; 
Creation impotent to help, 

But prayer remained our side. 

How excellent the heaven, 
When earth cannot be had; 
How hospitable, then, the face 
Of our old neighbor, God! 


XXXIII 

W HEN I was small, a woman died. 

To-day her only boy 
Went up from the Potomac, 

His face all victory, 

To look at her; how slowly 
The seasons must have turned 
Till bullets dipt an angle, 

And he passed quickly round! 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


If pride shall be in Paradise 
I never can decide; 

Of their imperial conduct, 

No person testified. 

But proud in apparition, 

That woman and her boy 

Pass back and forth before my brain, 

As ever in the sky. 


XXXIV 

T HE daisy follows soft the sun, 

And when his golden walk is done. 
Sits shyly at his feet. 

He, waking, finds the flower near. 

“ Wherefore, marauder, art thou here ? ” 
“Because, sir, love is sweet!” 

We are the flower, Thou the sun! 

Forgive us, if as days decline, 

We nearer steal to Thee, — 

Enamoured of the parting west, 

The peace, the flight, the amethyst, 
Night’s possibility! 


XXXV 


N O rack can torture me, 
My soul’s at liberty. 
Behind this mortal bone 
There knits a bolder one 


[198] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


You cannot prick with saw, 
Nor rend with scymitar. 

Two bodies therefore be; 

Bind one, and one will flee. 

The eagle of his nest 
No easier divest 
And gain the sky. 

Than mayest thou. 

Except thyself may be 
Thine enemy; 

Captivity is consciousness, 

So’s liberty. 

XXXVI 

I LOST a world the other day. 

Has anybody found? 

You ’ll know it by the row of stars 
Around its forehead bound. 

A rich man might not notice it; 
Yet to my frugal eye 
Of more esteem than ducats. 

Oh, find it, sir, for me! 


XXXVII 

I F I shouldn’t be alive 
When the robins come, 
Give the one in red cravat 
A memorial crumb. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


If I could n’t thank you, 
Being just asleep, 

You will know I’m trying 
With my granite lip! 


XXXVIII 

S LEEP is supposed to be. 

By souls of sanity, 

The shutting of the eye. 

Sleep is the station grand 
Down which on either hand 
The hosts of witness stand! 

Mom is supposed to be, 

By people of degree, 

The breaking of the day. 

Morning has not occurred! 

That shall aurora be 
East of eternity; 

One with the banner gay, 

One in the red array,— 

That is the break of day. 

XXXIX 

I SHALL know why, when time is over, 
And I have ceased to wonder why; £ 
Christ will explain each separate anguish 
In the fair schoolroom of the sky. 


TIME AND ETERNITY 

He will tell me what Peter promised. 
And I, for wonder at his woe, 

I shall forget the drop of anguish 
That scalds me now, that scalds me now. 


XL 


1 NEVER lost as much but twice, 
And that was in the sod; 

Twice have I stood a beggar 
Before the door of God! 

Angels, twice descending, 
Reimbursed my store. 

Burglar, banker, father, 

I am poor once more! 


XLI 


ET down the bars, O Death! 



-L' The tired flocks come in 
Whose bleating ceases to repeat, 
Whose wandering is done. 

Thine is the stillest night, 

Thine the securest fold; 

Too near thou art for seeking thee, 
Too tender to be told. 


[201] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XLII 

G OING to heaven! 

I don’t know when, 

Pray do not ask me how,— 

Indeed, I’m too astonished 
To think of answering you! 

Going to heaven! — 

How dim it sounds! 

And yet it will be done 

As sure as flocks go home at night 

Unto the shepherd’s arm! 

Perhaps you ’re going too! 

Who knows? 

If you should get there first, 

Save just a little place for me 
Close to the two I lost! 

The smallest “robe” will fit me, 

And just a bit of “ crown 

For you know we do not mind our dress 

When we are going home. 


I’m glad I don’t believe it, 

For it would stop my breath, 

And I’d like to look a little more 
At such a curious earth! 

I am glad they did believe it 
Whom I have never found 
Since the mighty autumn afternoon 
I left them in the ground. 


[202] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


XLIII 

least to pray is left, is left. 



O Jesus ! in the air 
I know not which thy chamber is,— 

I’m knocking everywhere. 

Thou stirrest earthquake in the South, 
And maelstrom in the sea; 

Say, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, 

Hast thou no arm for me ? 


XLIV 


S TEP lightly on this narrow spot! 

The broadest land that grows 
Is not so ample as the breast 
These emerald seams enclose. 

Step lofty; for this name is told 
As far as cannon dwell, 

Or flag subsist, or fame export 
Her deathless syllable. 


XLV 

M ORNS like these we parted; 

Noons like these she rose, 
Fluttering first, then firmer, 

To her fair repose. 

[203] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


Never did she lisp it, 

And’t was not for me; 

She was mute from transport, 
I, from agony! 

Till the evening, nearing, 

One the shutters drew — 
Quick! a sharper rustling! 
And this linnet flew! 


XLVI 

DEATH-BLOW is a life-blow to some 



•LjL Who, till they died, did not alive become; 
Who, had they lived, had died, but when 
They died, vitality begun. 


XLVI I 


I READ my sentence steadily, 
Reviewed it with my eyes, 
To see that I made no mistake 
In its extremest clause, — 


|l The date, and manner of the shame; 


And then the pious form 

That “ God have mercy ” on the soul 

The jury voted him. 


[204] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


I made my soul familiar 
With her extremity, 

That at the last it should not be 
A novel agony, 

But she and Death, acquainted, 
Meet tranquilly as friends, 

Salute and pass without a hint — 
And there the matter ends. 


XLVIII 

T HAVE not told my garden yet, 
Lest that should conquer me; 

I have not quite the strength now 
To break it to the bee. 

I will not name it in the street, 

For shops would stare, that I, 

So shy, so very ignorant, 

Should have the face to die. 

The hillsides must not know it, 
Where I have rambled so, 

Nor tell the loving forests 
The day that I shall go, 

Nor lisp it at the table, 

Nor heedless by the way 
Hint that within the riddle 
One will walk to-day! 

[205] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XLIX 


HEY dropped like flakes, they dropped like stars, 



JL Like petals from a rose, 

When suddenly across the June 
A wind with fingers goes. 

They perished in the seamless grass, — 
No eye could find the place; 

But God on his repealless list 
Can summon every face. 


L 



HE only ghost I ever saw 


A Was dressed in mechlin, — so; 
He wore no sandal on his foot, 

And stepped like flakes of snow. 

His gait was soundless, like the bird, 
But rapid, like the roe; 

His fashions quaint, mosaic, 

Or, haply, mistletoe. 

His conversation seldom, 

His laughter like the breeze 
That dies away in dimples 
Among the pensive trees. 

Our interview was transient,— 

Of me, himself was shy; 

And God forbid I look behind 
Since that appalling day! 


[206] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


LI 

S OME, too fragile for winter winds, 
The thoughtful grave encloses,— 
Tenderly tucking them in from frost 
Before their feet are cold. 

Never the treasures in her nest 
The cautious grave exposes, 

Building where schoolboy dare not look 
And sportsman is not bold. 

This covert have all the children 
Early aged, and often cold,— 

Sparrows unnoticed by the Father; 
Lambs for whom time had not a fold. 


LI I 


AS by the dead we love to sit, 
Become so wondrous dear, 
As for the lost we grapple, 
Though all the rest are here,— 


In broken mathematics 
We estimate our prize, 
Vast, in its fading ratio, 
To our penurious eyes! 

[207] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


LI 11 

D EATH sets a thing significant 
The eye had hurried by. 

Except a perished creature 
Entreat us tenderly 

To ponder little workmanships 
In crayon or in wool, 

With “ This was last her fingers did,” 
Industrious until 

The thimble weighed too heavy, 

The stitches stopped themselves, 

And then ’twas put among the dust 
Upon the closet shelves. 

A book I have, a friend gave. 

Whose pencil, here and there, 

Had notched the place that pleased him, 
At rest his fingers are. 

Now, when I read, I read not, 

For interrupting tears 
Obliterate the etchings 
Too costly for repairs. 

LIV 

1 WENT to heaven,— 

’T was a small town, 

Lit with a ruby, 

Lathed with down. 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


Stiller than the fields 
At the full dew, 
Beautiful as pictures 
No man drew. 

People like the moth, 
Of mechlin, frames, 
Duties of gossamer, 
And eider names. 
Almost contented 
I could be 
’Mong such unique 
Society. 


LV 



HEIR height in heaven comforts not, 


Jl Their glory nought to me; 
’T was best imperfect, as it was; 

I ’m finite, I can’t see. 

The house of supposition, 

The glimmering frontier 
That skirts the acres of perhaps, 
To me shows insecure. 

The wealth I had contented me; 
If ’twas a meaner size, 

Then I had counted it until 
It pleased my narrow eyes 


[209] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

Better than larger values, 
However true their show; 

This timid life of evidence 
Keeps pleading, “ I don’t know.” 


LVI 


T HERE is a shame of nobleness 
Confronting sudden pelf,— 
A finer shame of ecstasy 
Convicted of itself. 


A best disgrace a brave man feels, 
Acknowledged of the brave,— 

One more “Ye Blessed” to be told; 
But this involves the grave. 


LVI I 


A TRIUMPH may be of several kinds. 

There’s triumph in the room 
When that old imperator, Death, 

By faith is overcome. 


There’s triumph of the finer mind 
When truth, affronted long, 
Advances calm to her supreme, 
Her God her only throng. 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


A triumph when temptation’s bribe 
Is slowly handed back, 

One eye upon the heaven renounced 
And one upon the rack. 

Severer triumph, by himself 
Experienced, who can pass 
Acquitted from that naked bar, 
Jehovah’s countenance! 


LVIII 

P OMPLESS no life can pass away 
The lowliest career 
To the same pageant wends its way 
As that exalted here. 

How cordial is the mystery! 

The hospitable pall 
A “this way” beckons spaciously,— 
A miracle for all! 


LIX 

I NOTICED people disappeared, 
When but a little child, — 
Supposed they visited remote, 

Or settled regions wild. 

Now know I they both visited 
And settled regions wild, 

But did because they died, — a fact 
Withheld the little child! 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


LX 

I HAD no cause to be awake, 

My best was gone to sleep, 

And morn a new politeness took 
And failed to wake them up, 

But called the others clear, 

And passed their curtains by. 

Sweet morning, when I over-sleep, 
Knock, recollect, for me! 

I looked at sunrise once, 

And then I looked at them, 

And wishfulness in me arose 
For circumstance the same. 

’T was such an ample peace, 

It could not hold a sigh, — 

’T was Sabbath with the bells divorced, 
’T was sunset all the day. 

So choosing but a gown 
And taking but a prayer, 

The only raiment I should need, 

I struggled, and was there. 


LXI 

I F anybody’s friend be dead, 

It’s sharpest of the theme 
The thinking how they walked alive, 
At such and such a time. 


[212] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


Their costume, of a Sunday, 

Some manner of the hair, — 

A prank nobody knew but them, 

Lost, in the sepulchre. 

How warm they were on such a day: 

You almost feel the date, 

So short way off it seems; and now, 

They ’re centuries from that. 

How pleased they were at what you said; 
You try to touch the smile, 

And dip your fingers in the frost: 

When was it, can you tell, 

You asked the company to tea, 
Acquaintance, just a few, 

And chatted close with this grand thing 
That don’t remember you? 

Past bows and invitations, 

Past interview, and vow, 

Past what ourselves can estimate,— 

That makes the quick of woe! 


LXII 

O UR journey had advanced; 

Our feet were almost come 
To that odd fork in Being’s road, 
Eternity by term. 

[213] 




POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

Our pace took sudden awe, 

Our feet reluctant led. 

Before were cities, but between, 
The forest of the dead. 

Retreat was out of hope,— 
Behind, a sealed route, 
Eternity’s white flag before, 
And God at every gate. 


LXIII 

MPLE make this bed. 



Make this bed with awe; 
In it wait till judgment break 
Excellent and fair. 

Be its mattress straight. 

Be its pillow round; 

Let no sunrise’ yellow noise 
Interrupt this ground. 


LXIV 


O N such a night, or such a night, 
Would anybody care 
If such a little figure 
Slipped quiet from its chair, 


[214] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


So quiet, oh, how quiet! 

That nobody might know 
But that the little figure 
Rocked softer, to and fro? 

On such a dawn, or such a dawn, 

Would anybody sigh 
That such a little figure 
Too sound asleep did lie 

For chanticleer to wake it,— 

Or stirring house below, 

Or giddy bird in orchard, 

Or early task to do? 

There was a little figure plump 
For every little knoll, 

Busy needles, and spools of thread, 

And trudging feet from school. 

Playmates, and holidays, and nuts, 

And visions vast and small. 

Strange that the feet so precious charged 
Should reach so small a goal! 


LXV 


E SSENTIAL oils are wrung: 

The attar from the rose 
Is not expressed by suns alone, 

It is the gift of screws. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

The general rose decays; 

But this, in lady’s drawer, 

Makes summer when the lady lies 
In ceaseless rosemary. 


LXVI 

I LIVED on dread; to those who know 
The stimulus there is 
In danger, other impetus 
Is numb and vital-less. 

As ’t were a spur upon the soul, 

A fear will urge it where 
To go without the spectre’s aid 
Were challenging despair. 


LXVI I 


TF I should die, 

And you should live, 

And time should gurgle on. 

And morn should beam, 

And noon should burn, 

As it has usual done; 

If birds should build as early. 

And bees as bustling go, — 

One might depart at option 
From enterprise below! 

’T is sweet to know that stocks will stand 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


When we with daisies lie, 
That commerce will continue, 
And trades as briskly fly. 

It makes the parting tranquil 
And keeps the soul serene, 
That gentlemen so sprightly 
Conduct the pleasing scene! 


LX VIII 


H ER final summer was it, 

And yet we guessed it not; 
If tenderer industriousness 
Pervaded her, we thought 


A further force of life 
Developed from within,— 

When Death lit all the shortness up, 
And made the hurry plain. 


We wondered at our blindness,— 
When nothing was to see 
But her Carrara guide-post, — 

At our stupidity, 


When, duller than our dulness, 
The busy darling lay, 

So busy was she, finishing, 

So leisurely were we! 

[217] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


LXIX 

O NE need not be a chamber to be haunted, 
One need not be a house; 

The brain has corridors surpassing 
Material place. 

Far safer, of a midnight meeting 
External ghost, 

Than an interior confronting 
That whiter host. 

Far safer through an Abbey gallop, 

The stones achase, 

Than, moonless, one’s own self encounter 
In lonesome place. 

Ourself, behind ourself concealed, 

Should startle most; 

Assassin, hid in our apartment, 

Be horror’s least. 

The prudent carries a revolver, 

He bolts the door, 

O’erlooking a superior spectre 
More near. 


LXX 

S HE died, — this was the way she died; 

And when her breath was done, 

Took up her simple wardrobe 
And started for the sun. 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


Her little figure at the gate 
The angels must have spied, 
Since I could never find her 
Upon the mortal side. 


LXXI 

W AIT till the majesty of Death 
Invests so mean a brow! 
Almost a powdered footman 
Might dare to touch it now! 


Wait till in everlasting robes 
This democrat is dressed, 

Then prate about “ preferment ” 
And “station” and the rest! 


Around this quiet courtier 
Obsequious angels wait! 

Full royal is his retinue, 

Full purple is his state! 

A lord might dare to lift the hat 
To such a modest clay, 

Since that my Lord, “ the Lord of lords ” 
Receives unblushingly! 


LXXII 

W ENT up a year this evening! 

I recollect it well! 

Amid no bells nor bravos 
The bystanders will tell! 


[219] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


Cheerful, as to the village, 
Tranquil, as to repose, 

Chastened, as to the chapel, 

This humble tourist rose. 

Did not talk of returning, 

Alluded to no time 

When, were the gales propitious, 

We might look for him; 

Was grateful for the roses 
In life’s diverse bouquet, 

Talked softly of new species 
To pick another day. 

Beguiling thus the wonder, 

The wondrous nearer drew; 

Hands bustled at the moorings — 
The crowd respectful grew. 
Ascended from our vision 
To countenances new! 

A difference, a daisy, 

Is all the rest I knew! 


LXXIII 

T AKEN from men this morning. 
Carried by men to-day, 

Met by the gods with banners 
Who marshalled her away. 

One little maid from playmates, 

One little mind from school,— 

There must be guests in Eden; 

All the rooms are full. 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


Far as the east from even, 
Dim as the border star, — 
Courtiers quaint, in kingdoms, 
Our departed are. 


LXXIV 


W HAT inn is this 

Where for the night 
Peculiar traveller comes? 

Who is the landlord? 

Where the maids? 

Behold, what curious rooms! 
No ruddy fires on the hearth, 
No brimming tankards flow. 
Necromancer, landlord, 

Who are these below? 


LXXV 

I T was not death, for I stood up, 
And all the dead lie down; 

It was not night, for all the bells 
Put out their tongues, for noon. 

It was not frost, for on my flesh 
I felt siroccos crawl,— 

Nor fire, for just my marble feet 
Could keep a chancel cool. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

And yet it tasted like them all; 

The figures I have seen 
Set orderly, for burial, 

Reminded me of mine, 

As if my life were shaven 
And fitted to a frame, 

And could not breathe without a key; 
And ’twas like midnight, some, 

When everything that ticked has stopped. 
And space stares, all around, 

Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns. 
Repeal the beating ground. 

But most like chaos, — stopless, cool,— 
Without a chance or spar, 

Or even a report of land 
To justify despair. 


LXXVI 

I SHOULD not dare to leave my friend, 
Because — because if he should die 
While I was gone, and I — too late — 
Should reach the heart that wanted me; 

If I should disappoint the eyes 
That hunted, hunted so, to see. 

And could not bear to shut until 
They “noticed” me — they noticed me; 


[222] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


If I should stab the patient faith 
So sure I’d come — so sure I’d come, 

It listening, listening, went to sleep 
Telling my tardy name,— 

My heart would wish it broke before, 
Since breaking then, since breaking then, 
Were useless as next morning’s sun, 
Where midnight frosts had lain! 

LXXVII 

G REAT streets of silence led away 
To neighborhoods of pause; 

Here was no notice, no dissent, 

No universe, no laws. 

By clocks ’twas morning, and for night 
The bells at distance called; 

But epoch had no basis here, 

For period exhaled. 


LXXVIII 


A THROE upon the features 
A hurry in the breath, 

An ecstasy of parting 
Denominated “ Death ”, — 


An anguish at the mention, 
Which, when to patience grown, 
I’ve known permission given 
To rejoin its own. 

[223] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


LXXIX 

O F tribulation these are they 
Denoted by the white; 

The spangled gowns, a lesser rank 
Of victors designate. 

All these did conquer; but the ones 
Who overcame most times 
Wear nothing commoner than snow, 
No ornament but palms. 

Surrender is a sort unknown 
On this superior soil; 

Defeat, an outgrown anguish, 
Remembered as the mile 

Our panting ankle barely gained 
When night devoured the road; 

But we stood whispering in the house, 
And all we said was “ Saved! ” 


LXXX 

I THINK just how my shape will rise 
When I shall be forgiven, 

Till hair and eyes and timid head 
Are out of sight, in heaven. 

I think just how my lips will weigh 
With shapeless, quivering prayer 
That you, so late, consider me, 

The sparrow of your care. 


[224] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


I mind me that of anguish sent, 

Some drifts were moved away 
Before my simple bosom broke,— 
And why not this, if they? 

And so, until delirious borne 
I con that thing, — “ forgiven/' — 
Till with long fright and longer trust 
I drop my heart, unshriven! 

LXXXI 

AFTER a hundred years 

Nobody knows the place,— 
Agony, that enacted there, 

Motionless as peace. 

Weeds triumphant ranged, 

Strangers strolled and spelled 
At the lone orthography 
Of the elder dead. 

Winds of summer fields 
Recollect the way,— 

Instinct picking up the key 
Dropped by memory. 


LXXXII 


1 AY this laurel on the one 

Too intrinsic for renown. 
Laurel! veil your deathless tree,— 
Him you chasten, that is he! 


[225] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


J 


LXXXIII 


T HIS world is not conclusion; 

A sequel stands beyond, 
Invisible, as music, 

But positive, as sound. 

It beckons and it baffles; 

Philosophies don’t know, 

And through a riddle, at the last, 
Sagacity must go. 

To guess it puzzles scholars ; 

To gain it, men have shown 
Contempt of generations, 

And crucifixion known. 


LXXXIV 


W E learn in the retreating 
How vast an one 
Was recently among us. 

A perished sun 


Endears in the departure 
How doubly more 
Than all the golden presence 
It was before! 


LXXXV 


T HEY say that “time assuages”, 
Time never did assuage; 

An actual suffering strengthens. 

As sinews do, with age. 


[226] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


Time is a test of trouble, 

■ But not a remedy. 

If such it prove, it prove too 
There was no malady. 


LXXXVI 


W E cover thee, sweet face. 

Not that we tire of thee, 
But that thyself fatigue of us; 

Remember, as thou flee, 

We follow thee until 
Thou notice us no more, 

And then, reluctant, turn away 
To con thee o’er and o’er, 

And blame the scanty love 
We were content to show, 
Augmented, sweet, a hundred fold 
If thou would’st take it now. 


LXXXVII 


T HAT is solemn we have ended,— 
Be it but a play, 

Or a glee among the garrets, 

Or a holiday, 


Or a leaving home; or later, 
Parting with a world 
We have understood, for better 
Still it be unfurled. 


[227] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


LXXXVIII 

T HE stimulus, beyond the grave 
His countenance to see, 
Supports me like imperial drams 
Afforded royally. 

LXXXIX 

G IVEN in marriage unto thee, 
Oh, thou celestial host! 

Bride of the Father and the Son, 
Bride of the Holy Ghost! 

Other betrothal shall dissolve, 
Wedlock of will decay; 

Only the keeper of this seal 
Conquers mortality. 


XC 

qpHAT such have died enables us 
A The tranquiller to die; 

That such have lived, certificate 
For immortality. 


XCI 

T HEY won’t frown always, — some sweet day 
When I forget to tease, 

They ’ll recollect how cold I looked, 

And how I just said “ please.’’ 


[228] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


Then they will hasten to the door 
To call the little child, 

Who cannot thank them, for the ice 
That on her lisping piled. 


XCII 

’^TMS an honorable thought, 

A And makes one lift one’s hat, 
As one encountered gentlefolk 
Upon a daily street, 

That we Ve immortal place, 

Though pyramids decay, 

And kingdoms, like the orchard, 

Flit russetly away. 


XCIII 

T HE distance that the dead have gone 
Does not at first appear; 

Their coming back seems possible 
For many an ardent year. 

And then, that we have followed them 
We more than half suspect, 

So intimate have we become 
With their dear retrospect. 


[229] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XCIV 


H OW dare the robins sing, 

When men and women hear 
Who since they went to their account 
Have settled with the year! — 

Paid all that life had earned 
In one consummate bill, 

And now, what life or death can do 
Is immaterial. 

Insulting is the sun 
T,o him whose mortal light, 
Beguiled of immortality, 

Bequeaths him to the night. 

In deference to him 
Extinct be every hum, 

Whose garden wrestles with the dew. 
At daybreak overcome! 


xcv 


D EATH is like the insect 
Menacing the tree. 
Competent to kill it, 

But decoyed may be. 


Bait it with the balsam, 
Seek it with the knife, 
Baffle, if it cost you 
Everything in life. 

[230] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


Then, if it have burrowed 
Out of reach of skill, 
Ring the tree and leave it, — 
’T is the vermin’s will. 


XCVI 


’'T* IS sunrise, little maid, hast thou 
A No station in the day? 

’T was not thy wont to hinder so, — 
Retrieve thine industry. 


’T is noon, my little maid, alas! 

And art thou sleeping yet ? 
The lily waiting to be wed, 

The bee, dost thou forget? 


My little maid, ’t is night; alas, 

That night should be to thee 
Instead of morning! Hadst thou broached 
Thy little plan to me, 

Dissuade thee if I could not, sweet, 

I might have aided thee. 


XCVII 

E ACH that we lose takes part of us; 

A crescent still abides, 

Which like the moon, some turbid night, 
Is summoned by the tides. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XCVIII 

N OT any higher stands the grave 
For heroes than for men; 
Not any nearer for the child 
Than numb three-score and ten. 

This latest leisure equal lulls 
The beggar and his queen; 
Propitiate this democrat 
By summer’s gracious mien. 


XCIX 

AS far from pity as complaint, 
As cool to speech as stone, 
As numb to revelation 

As if my trade were bone. 

As far from time as history, 

As near yourself to-day 
As children to the rainbow’s scarf, 
Or sunset’s yellow play 

To eyelids in the sepulchre. 

How still the dancer lies, 

While color’s revelations break, 
And blaze the butterflies! 


[232] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


c 

T IS whiter than an Indian pipe, 
’T is dimmer than a lace; 

No stature has it, like a fog, 

When you approach the place. 

Not any voice denotes it here, 

Or intimates it there; 

A spirit, how doth it accost ? 

What customs hath the air? 


This limitless hyperbole 
Each one of us shall be; 
’T is drama, if (hypothesis) 
It be not tragedy! 


Cl 


S HE laid her docile crescent down, 
And this mechanic stone 
Still states, to dates that have forgot, 
The news that she is gone. 


So constant to its stolid trust, 
The shaft that never knew, 

It shames the constancy that fled 
Before its emblem flew. 


[233] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


CII 


B LESS God, he went as soldiers, 
His musket on his breast; 
Grant, God, he charge the bravest 
Of all the martial blest. 


Please God, might I behold him 
In epauletted white, 

I should not fear the foe then, 
I should not fear the fight. 


cm 

I MMORTAL is an ample word 
When what we need is by, 

But when it leaves us for a time, 
’T is a necessity. 

Of heaven above the firmest proof 
We fundamental know. 

Except for its marauding hand, 

It had been heaven below. 


CIV 


W HERE every bird is bold to go, 
And bees abashless play, 

The foreigner before he knocks 
Must thrust the tears away. 


[234] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


cv 

T HE grave my little cottage is, 

Where, keeping house for thee, 
I make my parlor orderly, 

And lay the marble tea, 

For two divided, briefly, 

A cycle, it may be, 

Till everlasting life unite 
In strong society. 


CVI 

T HIS was in the white of the year, 
That was in the green. 

Drifts were as difficult then to think 
As daisies now to be seen. 

Looking back is best that is left, 

Or if it be before, 

Retrospection is prospect’s half, 
Sometimes almost more. 


CVII 

S WEET hours have perished here; 

This is a mighty room; 

Within its precincts hopes have played, — 
Now shadows in the tomb. 


[235] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


CVIII 


M E! Come! My dazzled face 
In such a shining place! 


Me! Hear! My foreign ear 
The sounds of welcome near! 


The saints shall meet 
Our bashful feet. 


My holiday shall be 
That they remember me; 

My paradise, the fame 
That they pronounce my name. 


CIX 

F ROM us she wandered now a year, 
Her tarrying unknown; 

If wilderness prevent her feet, 

Or that ethereal zone 

No eye hath seen and lived, 

We ignorant must be. 

We only know what time of year 
We took the mystery. 

[236] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


cx 

1 WISH I knew that woman’s name, 

So, when she comes this way, 

To hold my life, and hold my ears, 

For fear I hear her say 

She’s “ sorry I am dead ”, again, 

Just when the grave and I 
Have sobbed ourselves almost to sleep,— 
Our only lullaby. 


CXI 


B EREAVED of all, I went abroad, 
No less bereaved to be 
Upon a new peninsula, — 

The grave preceded me, 

Obtained my lodgings ere myself, 
And when I sought my bed, 

The grave it was, reposed upon 
The pillow for my head. 

I waked, to find it first awake, 

I rose, — it followed me; 

I tried to drop it in the crowd. 

To lose it in the sea, 

In cups of artificial drowse 
To sleep its shape away,— 

The grave was finished, but the spade 
Remained in memory. 

[237] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


CXII 

I FELT a funeral in my brain, 

And mourners, to and fro, 

Kept treading, treading, till it seemed 
That sense was breaking through. 

And when they all were seated, 

A service like a drum 
Kept beating, beating, till I thought 
My mind was going numb. 

And then I heard them lift a box, 

And creak across my soul 
With those same boots of lead, again. 
Then space began to toll 

As all the heavens were a bell, 

And Being but an ear, 

And I and silence some strange race, 
Wrecked, solitary, here. 


CXIII 

1 MEANT to find her when I came 
Death had the same design ; 

But the success was his, it seems, 
And the discomfit mine. 


[238] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


I meant to tell her how I longed 
For just this single time; 

But Death had told her so the first, 
And she had hearkened him. 

To wander now is my abode; 

To rest, — to rest would be 
A privilege of hurricane 
To memory and me. 


CXIV 

I SING to use the waiting, 

My bonnet but to tie, 

And shut the door unto my house; 
No more to do have I, 

Till, his best step approaching, 

We journey to the day, 

And tell each other how we sang 
To keep the dark away. 


CXV 


SICKNESS of this world it most occasions 



When best men die; 

A wishfulness their far condition 
To occupy. 


[239] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

A chief indifference, as foreign 
A world must be 
Themselves forsake contented, 

For Deity. 

CXVI 

S uperfluous were the sun 

When excellence is dead; 

He were superfluous every day, 

For every day is said 

That syllable whose faith 
Just saves it from despair, 

And whose “ I ’ll meet you ” hesitates 
If love inquire, “ Where ?” 

Upon his dateless fame 
Our periods may lie, 

As stars that drop anonymous 
From an abundant sky. 

CXVII 

S O proud she was to die 
It made us all ashamed 
That what we cherished, so unknown 
To her desire seemed. 

So satisfied to go 
Where none of us should be, 
Immediately, that anguish stooped 
Almost to jealousy. 


[240] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


CXVIII 

T IE the strings to my life, my Lord, 
Then I am ready to go! 

Just a look at the horses — 

Rapid! That will do! 

Put me in on the firmest side, 

So I shall never fall; 

For we must ride to the Judgment, 
And it’s partly down hill. 

But never I mind the bridges, 

And never I mind the sea; 

Held fast in everlasting race 
By my own choice and thee. 

Good-by to the life I used to live, 

And the world I used to know; 

And kiss the hills for me, just once; 
Now I am ready to go! 


GXIX 

T HE dying need but little, dear, — 
A glass of water’s all, 

A flower’s unobtrusive face 
To punctuate the wall, 

A fan, perhaps, a friend’s regret, 

And certainly that one 
No color in the rainbow 

Perceives when you are gone. 


[241] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


cxx 

T HERE’S something quieter than sleep 
Within this inner room! 

It wears a sprig upon its breast, 

And will not tell its name. 

Some touch it and some kiss it, 

Some chafe its idle hand; 

It has a simple gravity 
I do not understand! 

While simple-hearted neighbors 
Chat of the “ early dead ”, 

We, prone to periphrasis, 

Remark that birds have fled! 


CXXI 

T HE soul should always stand ajar, 
That if the heaven inquire, 

He will not be obliged to wait, 

Or shy of troubling her. 


Depart, before the host has slid 
The bolt upon the door, 

To seek for the accomplished guest,— 
Her visitor no more. 


[242] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


CXXII 

T HREE weeks passed since I had seen her, — 
Some disease had vexed; 

’T was with text and village singing 
I beheld her next, 

And a company — our pleasure 
To discourse alone; 

Gracious now to me as any, 

Gracious unto none. 

Borne, without dissent of either, 

To the parish night; 

Of the separated people 
Which are out of sight? 


CXXIII 

I BREATHED enough to learn the trick, 
And now, removed from air, 

I simulate the breath so well, 

That one, to be quite sure 

The lungs are stirless, must descend 
Among the cunning cells, 

And touch the pantomime himself. 

How cool the bellows feels! 


[243] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


CXXIV 

I WONDER if the sepulchre 
Is not a lonesome way, 

When men and boys, and larks and June 
Go down the fields to hay! 


CXXV 

I F tolling bell I ask the cause. 

“ A soul has gone to God/’ 

I’m answered in a lonesome tone; 
Is heaven then so sad ? 

That bells should joyful ring to tell 
A soul had gone to heaven. 
Would seem to me the proper way 
A good news should be given. 


CXXVI 

TF I may have it when it’s dead 
I will contented be ; 

If just as soon as breath is out 
It shall belong to me, 

Until they lock it in the grave, 

’T is bliss I cannot weigh, 

For though they lock thee in the grave. 
Myself can hold the key. 


[244] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


Think of it, lover! I and thee 
Permitted face to face to be; 

After a life, a death we 'll say, — 

For death was that, and this is thee. 


CXXVII 



Or any cheek at nightfall 
Is tarnished by the snow, 


Before the fields have finished, 
Before the Christmas tree. 
Wonder upon wonder 
Will arrive to me! 


What we touch the hems of 
On a summer’s day; 

What is only walking 
Just a bridge away; 

That which sings so, speaks so, 
When there’s no one here, — 
Will the frock I wept in 
Answer me to wear ? 


CXXVIII 

1 HEARD a fly buzz when I died; 

The stillness round my form 
Was like the stillness in the air 
Between the heaves of storm. 


[245] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


The eyes beside had wrung them dry, 
And breaths were gathering sure 

For that last onset, when the king 
Be witnessed in his power. 

I willed my keepsakes, signed away 
What portion of me I 

Could make assignable, — and then 
There interposed a fly, 

With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz, 
Between the light and me; 

And then the windows failed, and then 
I could not see to see. 


CXXIX 

DRIFT! A little boat adrift! 



And night is coming down! 

Will no one guide a little boat 
Unto the nearest town ? 

So sailors say, on yesterday, 

Just as the dusk was brown, 

One little boat gave up its strife, 

And gurgled down and down. 

But angels say, on yesterday, 

Just as the dawn was red, 

One little boat o’erspent with gales 
Retrimmed its masts, redecked its sails 
Exultant, onward sped! 


[246] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


cxxx 

T HERE’S been a death in the opposite house 
As lately as to-day. 

I know it by the numb look 
Such houses have alway. 

The neighbors rustle in and out, 

The doctor drives away. 

A window opens like a pod, 

Abrupt, mechanically; 

Somebody flings a mattress out, — 

The children hurry by; 

They wonder if It died on that, — 

I used to when a boy. 

The minister goes stiffly in 
As if the house were his. 

And he owned all the mourners now, 

And little boys besides; 

And then the milliner, and the man 
Of the appalling trade, 

To take the measure of the house. 

There ’ll be that dark parade 

Of tassels and of coaches soon; 

It ’s easy as a sign, — 

The intuition of the news 
In just a country town. 

[247] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


CXXXI 

W E never know we go, — when we are going 
We jest and shut the door; 

Fate following behind us bolts it, 

And we accost no more. 


CXXXII 

I T struck me every day 

The lightning was as new 
As if the cloud that instant slit 
And let the fire through. 

It burned me in the night, 

It blistered in my dream; 

It sickened fresh upon my sight 
With every morning’s beam. 

I thought that storm was brief, — 
The maddest, quickest by ; 

But Nature lost the date of this, 
And left it in the sky. 


CXXXIII 

W ATER is taught by thirst ; 

Land, by the oceans passed; 
Transport, by throe; 

Peace, by its battles told; 

Love, by memorial mould; 

Birds, by the snow. 


[248] 


TIME AND ETERNITY. 


CXXXIV 

W E thirst at first, — ’tis Nature’s act; 

And later, when we die, 

A little water supplicate 
Of fingers going by. 

It intimates the finer want, 

Whose adequate supply 
Is that great water in the west 
Termed immortality. 


cxxxv 

CLOCK stopped — not the mantel’s; 



Geneva’s farthest skill 

Can’t put the puppet bowing 
That just now dangled still. 

An awe came on the trinket! 

The figures hunched with pain, 

Then quivered out of decimals 
Into degreeless noon. 

It will not stir for doctors, 

This pendulum of snow; 

The shopman importunes it, 
While cool, concernless No 

Nods from the gilded pointers, 
Nods from the seconds slim, 

Decades of arrogance between 
The dial life and him. 


[249] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

CXXXVI 

ALL overgrown by cunning moss, 
All interspersed with weed, 

The little cage of “ Currer Bell ”, 

In quiet Haworth laid. 

This bird, observing others, 

When frosts too sharp became, 

Retire to other latitudes, 

Quietly did the same. 

But differed in returning; 

Since Yorkshire hills are green, 

Yet not in all the nests I meet 
Can nightingale be seen. 

Gathered from any wanderings, 
Gethsemane can tell 

Through what transporting anguish 
She reached the asphodel! 

Soft falls the sounds of Eden 
Upon her puzzled ear; 

Oh, what an afternoon for heaven, 
When Bronte entered there! 


CXXXVII 


A TOAD can die of light! 

Death is the common right 
Of toads and men,— 

Of earl and midge 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


The privilege. 

Why swagger then ? 
The gnat’s supremacy 
Is large as thine. 


CXXXVIII 

F AR from love the Heavenly Father 
Leads the chosen child; 

Oftener through realm of briar 
Than the meadow mild, 

Oftener by the claw of dragon 
Than the hand of friend, 

Guides the little one predestined 
To the native land. 


CXXXIX 

A LONG, long sleep, a famous sleep 
That makes no show for dawn 
By stretch of limb or stir of lid, — 

An independent one. 

Was ever idleness like this ? 

Within a hut of stone 
To bask the centuries away 
Nor once look up for noon ? 

[251] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


CXL 

T WAS just this time last year I died. 

I know I heard the corn, 

When I was carried by the farms, — 

It had the tassels on. 

I thought how yellow it would look 
When Richard went to mill; 

And then I wanted to get out, 

But something held my will. 

I thought just how red apples wedged 
The stubble’s joints between; 

And carts went stooping round the fields 
To take the pumpkins in. 

I wondered which would miss me least, 
And when Thanksgiving came, 

If father’d multiply the plates 
To make an even sum. 

And if my stocking hung too high, 
Would it blur the Christmas glee, 

That not a Santa Claus could reach 
The altitude of me ? 

But this sort grieved myself, and so 
I thought how it would be 
When just this time, some perfect year, 
Themselves should come to me. 


[252] 


TIME AND ETERNITY 


CXLI 



|N this wondrous sea, 


Sailing silently, 
Knowest thou the shore ' 
Ho! pilot, ho! 

Where no breakers roar, 
Where the storm is o’er ? 

In the silent west 
Many sails at rest, 

Their anchors fast; 
Thither I pilot thee, — 
Land, ho! Eternity! 
Ashore at last! 


[253] 























PART FIVE 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


f)NE sister have I in our house, 
^ And one a hedge away, 

There’s only one recorded 
But both belong to me. 

One came the way that I came 
And wore my past year's gown, 

The other as a bird her nest, 

Builded our hearts among. 

She did not sing as we did, 

It was a different tune, 

Herself to her a music 
As Bumble-bee of June. 

To-day is far from childhood 
But up and down the hills 
I held her hand the tighter, 

Which shortened all the miles. 

And still her hum the years among 
Deceives the Butterfly, 

Still in her eye the Violets lie 
Mouldered this many May. 

I spilt the dew but took the morn, 

I chose this single star 

From out the wide night’s numbers, 

Sue — forevermore! 


I 


■/ 


A DVENTURE most unto itself 
The Soul condemned to be; 
Attended by a Single Hound — 

Its own Identity. 


II 

HE Soul that has a Guest, 



A Doth seldom go abroad, 
Diviner Crowd at home 
Obliterate the need, 

And courtesy forbid 
A Host’s departure, when 
Upon Himself be visiting 
The Emperor of Men! 


Ill 


E XCEPT the smaller size, no Lives are round, 
These hurry to a sphere, and show, and end. 
The larger, slower grow, and later hang — 

The Summers of Hesperides are long. 

IV 

F AME is a fickle food 

Upon a shifting plate, 

Whose table once a Guest, but not 
The second time, is set. 


[257] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


Whose crumbs the crows inspect, 
And with ironic caw 
Flap past it to the Farmer’s corn; 
Men eat of it and die. 


V 


HE right to perish might be thought 



An undisputed right, 

Attempt it, and the Universe upon the opposite 
Will concentrate its officers — 

You cannot even die, 

But Nature and Mankind must pause 
To pay you scrutiny. 


VI 


TJERIL as a possession 
’T is good to bear, 

Danger disintegrates satiety; 

There’s Basis there 
Begets an awe, 

That searches Human Nature’s creases 
As clean as Fire. 

VII 

W HEN Etna basks and purrs, 

Naples is more afraid 
Than when she shows her Garnet Tooth; 
Security is loud. 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


VIII 


R EVERSE cannot befall that fine Prosperity 
• Whose sources are interior. 

As soon Adversity 
A diamond overtake. 

In far Bolivian ground; 

Misfortune hath no implement 
Could mar it, if it found. 


IX 


T O be alive is power, 

Existence in itself, 

Without a further function, 
Omnipotence enough. 

To be alive and Will — 

T is able as a God! 

The Further of ourselves be what — 
Such being Finitude? 


X 



ITCHCRAFT has not a pedigree, 


* * T is early as our breath, 
And mourners meet it going out 
The moment of our death. 


[259] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XI 

E xhilaration is the Breeze 

That lifts us from the ground, 
And leaves us in another place 
Whose statement is not found; 
Returns us not, but after time 
We soberly descend, 

A little newer for the term 
Upon enchanted ground. 


XII 

N O romance sold unto, 

Could so enthrall a man 
As the perusal of 
His individual one. 

’T is fiction’s, to dilute 
To plausibility 

Our novel, when’t is small enough 
To credit, — ’t isn’t true! 


XIII 

I F what we could were what we would — 
Criterion be small; 

It is the Ultimate of talk 
The impotence to tell. 


[260] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


XIV 

PERCEPTION of an 
Object costs 

Precise the Object’s loss. 
Perception in itself a gain 
Replying to its price; 

The Object Absolute is nought, 
Perception sets it fair. 

And then upbraids a Perfectness 
That situates so far. 


XV 

O other can reduce 



-L ^ Our mortal consequence, 
Like the remembering it be nought 
A period from hence. 

But contemplation for 
Cotemporaneous nought 
Our single competition; 

Jehovah’s estimate. 


XVI 



‘HE blunder is to estimate,— 


JL “ Eternity is Then ,” 

We say, as of a station. 
Meanwhile he is so near, 

He joins me in my ramble, 
Divides abode with me, 

No friend have I that so persists 
As this Eternity. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XVII 

M Y Wheel is in the dark,— 

I cannot see a spoke, 

Yet know its dripping feet 
Go round and round. 

My foot is on the tide — 

An unfrequented road. 

Yet have all roads 
A “ clearing ” at the end. 

Some have resigned the Loom, 

Some in the busy tomb 
Find quaint employ, 

Some with new, stately feet 
Pass royal through the gate, 

Flinging the problem back at you and I. 


XVIII 



‘HERE is another Loneliness 


A That many die without, 

Not want or friend occasions it, 

Or circumstances or lot. 

But nature sometimes, sometimes thought, 
And whoso it befall 
Is richer than could be divulged 
By mortal numeral. 


[262] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


XIX 


S O gay a flower bereaved the mind 
As if it were a woe, 

Is Beauty an affliction, then ? 
Tradition ought to know. 


XX 


G LORY is that bright tragic thing, 
That for an instant 
Means Dominion, 

Warms some poor name 
That never felt the sun, 

Gently replacing 
In oblivion. 


XXI 



L HE missing All prevented me 


From missing minor things. 

If nothing larger than a World’s 
Departure from a hinge, 

Or Sun’s extinction be observed, 

’T was not so large that I 

Could lift my forehead from my work 

For curiosity. 


[263] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XXII 


H IS mind, of man a secret makes, 
I meet him with a start, 

He carries a circumference 
In which I have no part, 

Or even if I deem I do — 

He otherwise may know. 
Impregnable to inquest, 

However neighborly. 


XXIII 



HE suburbs of a secret 


A A strategist should keep, 
Better than on a dream intrude 
To scrutinize the sleep. 


XXIV 


T HE difference between despair 
And fear, is like the one 
Between the instant of a wreck, 
And when the wreck has been. 

The mind is smooth, — no motion — 

Contented as the eye 

Upon the forehead of a Bust, 

That knows it cannot see. 


[264] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


XXV 

T HERE is a solitude of space, 

A solitude of sea, 

A solitude of death, but these 
Society shall be, 

Compared with that profounder site. 
That polar privacy, 

A Soul admitted to Itself: 

Finite Infinity. 


XXVI 

T HE props assist the house 
Until the house is built, 

And then the props withdraw — 

And adequate, erect, 

The house supports itself; 

Ceasing to recollect 

The auger and the carpenter. 

Just such a retrospect 
Hath the perfected life, 

A past of plank and nail, 

And slowness, — then the scaffolds drop 
Affirming it a soul. 

XXVII 

T HE gleam of an heroic act, 

Such strange illumination — 

The Possible’s slow fuse is lit 
By the Imagination! 

[265] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XXVIII 

O F Death the sharpest function, 
That, just as we discern. 
The Excellence defies us; 

Securest gathered then 
The fruit perverse to plucking, 

But leaning to the sight 
With the ecstatic limit 
Of unobtained Delight. 


XXIX 

D OWN Time’s quaint stream 
Without an oar, 

We are enforced to sail. 

Our Port — a secret — 

Our Perchance — a gale. 

What Skipper would 
Incur the risk, 

What Buccaneer would ride, 
Without a surety from the wind 
Or schedule of the tide ? 


XXX 

T BET with every Wind that blew, till Nature in chagrin 
Employed a Fact to visit me and scuttle my Balloon! 


[266] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


XXXI 

T HE Future never spoke, 

Nor will he, like the Dumb, 
Reveal by sign or syllable 
Of his profound To-come. 

But when the news be ripe, 
Presents it in the Act — 
Forestalling preparation 
Escape or substitute. 

Indifferent to him 
The Dower as the Doom, 

His office but to execute 
Fate’s Telegram to him. 


XXXII 

T WO lengths has every day, 
Its absolute extent — 
And area superior 
By hope or heaven lent. 

Eternity will be 
Velocity, or pause, 

At fundamental signals 
From fundamental laws. 

To die, is not to go — 

On doom’s consummate chart 
No territory new is staked, 
Remain thou as thou art. 


[267] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XXXIII 


T HE Soul’s superior instants 
Occur to Her alone, 

When friend and earth’s occasion 
Have infinite withdrawn. 

Or she, Herself, ascended 
To too remote a height, 

For lower recognition 
Than Her Omnipotent. 

This mortal abolition 
Is seldom, but as fair 
As Apparition — subject 
To autocratic air. 

Eternity’s disclosure 
To favorites, a few, 

Of the Colossal substance 
Of immortality. 


XXXIV 


ATURE is what we see. 



T ^1 The Hill, the Afternoon — 
Squirrel, Eclipse, the Bumble-bee, 
Nay — Nature is Heaven. 


[268] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


Nature is what we hear, 

The Bobolink, the Sea — 
Thunder, the Cricket — 
Nay, — Nature is Harmony. 

Nature is what we know 
But have no art to say, 

So impotent our wisdom is 
To Her simplicity. 


XXXV 


H, Teneriffe! 



Retreating Mountain! 


Purples of Ages pause for you, 

Sunset reviews her Sapphire Regiment, 
Day drops you her red Adieu! 

Still, clad in your mail of ices, 

Thigh of granite and thew of steel — 
Heedless, alike, of pomp or parting, 

Ah, Teneriffe! 


I ’m kneeling still. 


XXXVI 

S HE died at play, 
Gambolled away 
Her lease of spotted hours, 
Then sank as gaily as a Turk 
Upon a couch of flowers. 


[269] . 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


Her ghost strolled softly o'er the hill 
Yesterday and today, 

Her vestments as the silver fleece, 

Her countenance as spray. 


XXXVII 


M ORNING" means “ Milking" to the Farmer 
Dawn to the Apennines — 

Dice to the Maid. 

“ Morning" means just Chance to the Lover — 
Just Revelation to the Beloved. 

Epicures date a breakfast by it! 

Heroes a battle, 

The Miller a flood, 

Faint-going eyes their lapse 
From sighing, 

Faith, the Experiment of our Lord! 


XXXVIII 

A LITTLE madness in the Spring 
Is wholesome even for the King, 
But God be with the Clown, 

Who ponders this tremendous scene — 
This whole experiment of green, 

As if it were his own! 


[270] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


XXXIX 

T CAN’T tell you, but you feel it — 
-*■ Nor can you tell me, 

Saints with vanished slate and pencil 
Solve our April day. 

Sweeter than a vanished Frolic 
From a vanished Green! 

Swifter than the hoofs of Horsemen 
Round a ledge of Dream! 

Modest, let us walk among it. 

With our “ faces veiled ”, 

As they say polite Archangels 
Do, in meeting God. 

Not for me to prate about it, 

Not for you to say 
To some fashionable Lady — 

“ Charming April Day! ” 

Rather Heaven’s “ Peter Parley ”, 
By which, Children — slow — 

To sublimer recitations 
Are prepared to go! 


XL 


S OME Days retired from the rest 
In soft distinction lie. 

The Day that a companion came — 
Or was obliged to die. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XLI 


IKE Men and Women shadows walk 



' Upon the hills today, 

With here and there a mighty bow, 

Or trailing courtesy 
To Neighbors, doubtless, of their own; 
Not quickened to perceive 
Minuter landscape, as Ourselves 
And Boroughs where we live. 


XLII 


T HE butterfly obtains 
But little sympathy, 

Though favorably mentioned 
In Entomology. 

Because he travels freely 
And wears a proper coat, 

The circumspect are certain 
That he is dissolute. 

Had he the homely scutcheon of modest Industry, 
’T were fitter certifying for Immortality. 


XLIII 

T)EAUTY crowds me till I die, 
Beauty, mercy have on me! 
But if I expire today, 

Let it be in sight of thee 


[272] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


XLIV 

TX7"E spy the Forests and the Hills, 
* * The tents to Nature’s Show, 
Mistake the outside for the in 
And mention what we saw. 

Could Commentators on the sign 

Of Nature’s Caravan 

Obtain “ admission,” as a child, 

Some Wednesday afternoon? 


XLV 

I NEVER told the buried gold 
Upon the hill that lies, 

I saw the sun, his plunder done, 
Crouch low to guard his prize. 

He stood as near, as stood you here, 
A pace had been between — 

Did but a snake bisect the brake, 
My life had forfeit been. 

That was a wondrous booty, 

I hope ’twas honest gained — 
Those were the finest ingots 
That ever kissed the spade. 


[273] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

Whether to keep the secret — 
Whether to reveal — 

Whether, while I ponder 
Kidd may sudden sail — 

Could a Shrewd advise me 
We might e’en divide — 

Should a Shrewd betray me — 
“ Atropos ” decide! 


XLVI 

T HE largest fire ever known 
Occurs each afternoon, 
Discovered is without surprise. 
Proceeds without concern: 

Consumes, and no report to men. 

An Occidental town, 

Rebuilt another morning 
To be again burned down. 

XLVI I 

B LOOM upon the Mountain, stated, 
Blameless of a name. 
Efflorescence of a Sunset — 
Reproduced, the same. 

Seed, had I, my purple sowing 
Should endow the Day, 

Not a tropic of the twilight 
Show itself away. 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


Who for tilling*, to the Mountain 
Come, and disappear — 

Whose be Her renown, or fading, 
Witness, is not here. 

While I state — the solemn petals 
Far as North and East, 

Far as South and West expanding, 
Culminate in rest. 

And the Mountain to the Evening 
Fit His countenance, 

Indicating by no muscle 
The Experience. 

XLVIII 

M ARCH is the month of expectation,- 
The things we do not know, 

The Persons of prognostication 
Are coming now. 

We try to sham becoming firmness, 

But pompous joy 

Betrays us, as his first betrothal 

Betrays a boy. 


XLIX 


T HE Duties of the Wind are few — 
To cast the Ships at sea, 
Establish March, 

The Floods escort, 

And usher Liberty. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


L 


T HE Winds drew off 
Like hungry dogs 
Defeated of a bone. 

Through fissures in 
Volcanic cloud 

The yellow lightning shown. 
The trees held up 
Their mangled limbs 
Like animals in pain, 

When Nature falls 
Upon herself, 

Beware an Austrian! 


LI 

T THINK that the root of the Wind is Water, 
It would not sound so deep 
Were it a firmamental product, 

Airs no Oceans keep — 

Mediterranean intonations. 

To a Current’s ear 

There is a maritime conviction 

In the atmosphere. 


LII 

S O, from the mould, 
Scarlet and gold 
Many a Bulb will rise, 
Hidden away cunningly 


[276] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 

From sagacious eyes. 
So, from cocoon 
Many a Worm 
Leap so Highland gay, 
Peasants like me — 
Peasants like thee, 
Gaze perplexedly. 


LIII 

T HE long sigh of the Frog 
Upon a Summer’s day, 
Enacts intoxication 
Upon the revery. 

But his receding swell 
Substantiates a peace, 

That makes the ear inordinate 
For corporal release. 


LIV 

A CAP of lead across the sky 

Was tight and surly drawn, 

We could not find the Mighty Face, 
The figure was withdrawn. 

A chill came up as from a shaft, 

Our noon became a well, 

A thunder storm combines the charms 
Of Winter and of Hell. 


[277] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


LV 

I SEND two Sunsets — 

Day and I in competition ran, 
I finished two, and several stars, 
While He was making one. 

His own is ampler — 

But, as I was saying to a friend. 
Mine is the more convenient 
To carry in the hand. 

(Sent with brilliant flowers.) 


LVI 


O F this is Day composed — 

A morning and a noon, 

A Revelry unspeakable 
And then a gay Unknown; 

Whose Pomps allure and spurn — 
And dower and deprive, 

And penury for glory 
Remedilessly leave. 


LVI I 



HE Hills erect their purple heads, 


A The Rivers lean to see — 
Yet Man has not, of all the throng, 
A curiosity. 


[278] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


LVIII 

I IGHTLY stepped a yellow star 
To its lofty place, 

Loosed the Moon her silver hat 
From her lustral face. 

All of evening softly lit 
As an astral hall — 

“ Father/’ I observed to Heaven, 

“ You are punctual.” 


LIX 

T HE Moon upon her fluent route 
Defiant of a road. 

The stars Etruscan argument, 
Substantiate a God. 

If Aims impel these Astral Ones, 

The Ones allowed to know. 

Know that which makes them as forgot 
As Dawn forgets them now. 


LX 


L IKE some old-fashioned miracle 
* When Summertime is done, 
Seems Summer’s recollection 
And the affairs of June. 


[279] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


As infinite tradition 
As Cinderella’s bays, 

Or little John of Lincoln Green, 

Or Bluebeard’s galleries. 

Her Bees have a fictitious hum, 

Her Blossoms, like a dream, 

Elate — until we almost weep 
So plausible they seem. 

Her Memories like strains — review — 
When Orchestra is dumb, 

The Violin in baize replaced 
And Ear and Heaven numb. 


LXI 


G LOWING is her Bonnet, 
Glowing is her Cheek, 
Glowing is her Kirtle, 

Yet she cannot speak! 


Better, as the Daisy 
From the Summer hill, 
Vanish unrecorded 
Save by tearful Rill, 

Save by loving Sunrise 
Looking for her face, 
Save by feet unnumbered 
Pausing at the place! 


[280] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


LXII 

F OREVER cherished be the tree, 
Whose apple Winter warm, 
Enticed to breakfast from the sky 
Two Gabriels yestermorn; 

They registered in Nature’s book 
As Robin — Sire and Son, 

But angels have that modest way 
To screen them from renown. 


LXIII 



‘HE Ones that disappeared are back, 


The Phoebe and the Crow, 
Precisely as in March is heard 
The curtness of the Jay — 

Be this an Autumn or a Spring? 
My wisdom loses way, 

One side of me the nuts are ripe — 
The other side is May. 


LXIV 

T HOSE final Creatures, — who they are — 
That, faithful to the close. 

Administer her ecstasy, 

But just the Summer knows. 

[281] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


LXV 

S UMMER begins to have the look, 
Peruser of enchanting Book 
Reluctantly, but sure, perceives — 

A gain upon the backward leaves. 

Autumn begins to be inferred 
By millinery of the cloud, 

Or deeper color in the shawl 
That wraps the everlasting hill. 

The eye begins its avarice, 

A meditation chastens speech, 

Some Dyer of a distant tree 
Resumes his gaudy industry. 

Conclusion is the course of all, 
Almost to be perennial, 

And then elude stability 
Recalls to immortality. 


LXVI 



PROMPT, executive Bird is the Jay, 


Bold as a Bailiff’s hymn, 
Brittle and brief in quality — 
Warrant in every line; 


[282] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


Sitting a bough like a Brigadier, 
Confident and straight, 

Much is the mien 
Of him in March 
As a Magistrate. 

LX VII 

1 IKE brooms of steel 

The Snow and Wind 
Had swept the Winter Street, 
The House was hooked, 

The Sun sent out 
Faint Deputies of heat — 

Where rode the Bird 

The Silence tied 

His ample, plodding Steed, 

The Apple in the cellar snug 
Was all the one that played. 


LX VIII 


T HESE are the days that Reindeer love 
And pranks the Northern star, 

This is the Sun’s objective 
And Finland of the year. 


LXIX 


F OLLOW wise Orion 

Till you lose your eye, 
Dazzlingly decamping 
He is just as high. 

[283] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


LXX 

I N winter, in my room, 

I came upon a worm, 

Pink, lank, and warm. 

But as he was a worm 
And worms presume, 

Not quite with him at home — 
Secured him by a string 
To something neighboring, 
And went along. 


A trifle afterward 
A thing occurred, 

I’d not believe it if I heard — 
But state with creeping blood; 
A snake, with mottles rare, 
Surveyed my chamber floor, 

In feature as the worm before, 
But ringed with power. 

The very string 
With which I tied him, too, 
When he was mean and new, 
That string was there. 


I shrank — “How fair you are!” 
Propitiation’s claw — 

“ Afraid,” he hissed, 

“Of me?” 

“No cordiality?” 

He fathomed me. 


[284] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


Then, to a rhythm slim 
Secreted in his form, 

As patterns swim, 
Projected him. 

That time I flew, 

Both eyes his way, 

Lest he pursue — 

Nor ever ceased to run, 
Till, in a distant town, 
Towns on from mine — 
I sat me down; 

This was a dream. 


LXXI 

N OT any sunny tone 

From any fervent zone 
Finds entrance there. 

Better a grave of Balm 
Toward human nature's home, 
And Robins near, 

Than a stupendous Tomb 
Proclaiming to the gloom 
How dead we are. 


LXXII 


F OR Death,—or rather 

For the things 'twill buy, 
These put away 
Life's opportunity. 


[285] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

The things that Death will buy 
Are Room, — Escape 
From Circumstances, 

And a Name. 

How gifts of Life 

With Death’s gifts will compare. 

We know not — 

For the rates stop Here. 


LXXIII 


D ropped into the 

Ether Acre! 

Wearing the sod gown — 
Bonnet of Everlasting laces — 
Brooch frozen on! 

Horses of blonde — 

And coach of silver, 

Baggage a strapped Pearl! 
Journey of Down 
And whip of Diamond — 
Riding to meet the Earl! 


LXXIV 

T HIS quiet Dust was Gentlemen and Ladies, 
And Lads and Girls; 

Was laughter and ability and sighing, 

And frocks and curls. 


[286] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


This passive place a Summers nimble mansion, 
Where Bloom and Bees 
Fulfilled their Oriental Circuit, 

Then ceased like these. 


LXXV 

’'p WAS comfort in her dying room 
JL To hear the living clock, 

A short relief to have the wind 
Walk boldly up and knock, 

Diversion from the dying theme 
To hear the children play, 

But wrong, the mere 
That these could live,— 

And This of ours must die! 


LXXVI 


T OO cold is this 

To warm with sun, 

Too stiff to bended be, 

To joint this agate were a feat 
Outstaring masonry. 

How went the agile kernel out — 
Contusion of the husk, 

Nor rip, nor wrinkle indicate,— 
But just an Asterisk. 

[287] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


LXXVII 

I WATCHED her face to see which way 
She took the awful news. 

Whether she died before she heard — 

Or in protracted bruise 
Remained a few short years with us, 

Each heavier than the last — 

A further afternoon to fail, 

As Flower at fall of Frost. 


LXXVII I 


T O-DAY or this noon 
She dwelt so close, 

I almost touched her; 
Tonight she lies 
Past neighborhood — 

And bough and steeple — 
Now past surmise. 


LXXIX 


T SEE thee better in the dark, 
I do not need a light. 

The love of thee a prism be 
Excelling violet. 


[288] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


I see thee better for the years 
That hunch themselves between, 

The miner’s lamp sufficient be 
To nullify the mine. 

And in the grave I see thee best — 

Its little panels be 

A-glow, all ruddy with the light 

I held so high for thee! 

What need of day to those whose dark 
Hath so surpassing sun, 

It seem it be continually 
At the meridian? 


LXXX 


I OW at my problem bending, 
Another problem comes, 
Larger than mine, serener, 
Involving statelier sums; 

I check my busy pencil, 

My ciphers slip away, 
Wherefore, my baffled fingers, 
Time Eternity? 


LXXXI 


I F pain for peace prepares, 
Lo the “Augustan” years 
Our feet await! 


[289] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 

If Springs from Winter rise, 
Can the Anemone’s 
Be reckoned up? 

If night stands first, then noon, 
To gird us for the sun, 

What gaze — 

When, from a thousand skies, 
On our developed eyes 
Noons blaze! 


LXXXII 

1 FIT for them, 

I seek the dark till I am thorough fit. 
The labor is a solemn one. 

With this sufficient sweet — 

That abstinence as mine produce 
A purer good for them, 

If I succeed,— 

If not, I had 

The transport of the Aim. 


LXXXIII 

N OT one by Heaven defrauded stay, 
Although He seem to steal. 

He restitutes in some sweet way. 
Secreted in His will. 


[290] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


LXXXIV 

T HE feet of people walking home 
In gayer sandals go, 

The Crocus, till she rises, 

The Vassal of the Snow — 

The lips at Hallelujah! 

Long years of practice bore, 

Till bye and bye these Bargemen 
Walked singing on the shore. 

Pearls are the Diver’s farthings 
Extorted from the Sea, 

Pinions the Seraph’s wagon, 

Pedestrians once, as we — 

Night is the morning’s canvas, 

Larceny, legacy, 

Death but our rapt attention 
To immortality. 

My figures fail to tell me 
How far the village lies, 

Whose Peasants are the angels, 

Whose Cantons dot the skies, 

My Classics veil their faces, 

My Faith that dark adores, 

Which from its solemn Abbeys 
Such resurrection pours! 

LXXXV 

W E should not mind so small a flower, 
Except it quiet bring 
Our little garden that we lost 

[291] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


Back to the lawn again. 

So spicy her Carnations red, 

So drunken reel her Bees, 

So silver steal a hundred Flutes 
From out a hundred trees, 

That whoso sees this little flower, 
By faith may clear behold 
The Bobolinks around the throne, 
And Dandelions gold. 


LXXXVI 


T O the staunch Dust we safe commit thee; 

Tongue if it hath, inviolate to thee — 
Silence denote and Sanctity enforce thee, 
Passenger of Infinity! 


LXXXVII 


H ER “ Last Poems ” — 

Poets ended, 

Silver perished with her tongue, 
Not on record bubbled other 
Flute, or Woman, so divine; 

Not unto its Summer morning 
Robin uttered half the tune — 
Gushed too free for the adoring, 
From the Anglo-Florentine. 

Late the praise — 


[292] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


’T is dull conferring 

On a Head too high to crown, 

Diadem or Ducal showing, 

Be its Grave sufficient sign. 

Yet if we, no Poet’s kinsman, 

Suffocate with easy woe, 

What and if ourself a Bridegroom, 

Put Her down, in Italy? 

(Written after the death of Mrs. Browning in 1861.) 


LXXXVIII 

I MMURED in Heaven! What a Cell! 

Let every bondage be, 

Thou Sweetest of the Universe, 

Like that which ravished thee! 


LXXXIX 

I ’M thinking of that other morn, 
When Cerements let go, 

And Creatures clad in Victory 
Go up in two by two! 


XC 


T HE overtakelessness of those 

Who have accomplished Death, 
Majestic is to me beyond 
The majesties of Earth. 


[293] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


The soul her “ not at Home ” 
Inscribes upon the flesh, 

And takes her fair aerial gait 
Beyond the hope of touch. 


XCI 


HE Look of Thee, what is it like? 



A Hast thou a hand or foot, 

Or mansion of Identity, 

And what is thy Pursuit? 

Thy fellows, — are they Realms or Themes? 
Hast thou Delight or Fear 
Or Longing, — and is that for us 
Or values more severe? 

Let change transfuse all other traits, 

Enact all other blame, 

But deign this least certificate — 

That thou shalt be the same. 


XCII 



PIE Devil, had he fidelity, 


A Would be the finest friend — 
Because he has ability, 

But Devils cannot mend. 

Perfidy is the virtue 
That would he but resign,— 

The Devil, so amended, 

Were durably divine. 


[294] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


XCIII 


P APA above! 

Regard a Mouse 
O’erpowered by the Cat; 

Reserve within thy Kingdom 
A “mansion” for the Rat! 


Snug in seraphic cupboards 
To nibble all the day, 

While unsuspecting cycles 
Wheel pompously away. 


XCIV 


N OT when we know 

The Power accosts, 

The garment of Surprise 
Was all our timid Mother wore 
At Home, in Paradise. 


XCV 


E LIJAH’S wagon knew no thill, 
Was innocent of wheel, 
Elijah’s horses as unique 
As was his vehicle. 

Elijah’s journey to portray, 

Expire with him the skill, 

Who justified Elijah, 

In feats inscrutable. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


XCVI 

“"OEMEMBER me,” implored the Thief — 
Av Oh magnanimity! 

“ My Visitor in Paradise 
I give thee Guaranty.” 

That courtesy will fair remain, 

When the delight is dust, 

With which we cite this mightiest case 
Of compensated Trust. 

Of All, we are allowed to hope, 

But Affidavit stands 

That this was due, where some, we fear. 

Are unexpected friends. 


XCVII 



O this apartment deep 


No ribaldry may creep; 


Untroubled this abode 
By any man but God. 


XCVIII 

“QOWN in dishonor?” 

Ah! Indeed! 

May this dishonor be? 

If I were half so fine myself, 
I’d notice nobody! 


[296] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


“ Sown in corruption ? ” 
By no means! 

Apostle is askew; 
Corinthians 1:15, narrates 
A circumstance or two! 


XCIX 



THROUGH lane it lay, through bramble, 


X Through clearing and through wood. 
Banditti often passed us 
Upon the lonely road. 

The wolf came purring curious, 

The owl looked puzzled down, 

The serpent’s satin figure 
Glid stealthily along. 

The tempest touched our garments, 

The lightning’s poignards gleamed, 

Fierce from the crag above us 
The hungry vulture screamed. 

The satyr’s fingers beckoned, 

The valley murmured “ Come ” — 

These were the mates — and this the road 
Those children fluttered home. 


[297] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


C 


HO is it seeks my pillow nights? 



▼ V With plain inspecting face, 

“ Did you, or did you not ? ” to ask, 

’T is Conscience, childhood’s nurse. 

With martial hand she strokes the hair 
Upon my wincing head, 

“ All rogues shall have their part in ” — 
What — 


The Phosphorus of God. 


Cl 


H IS Cheek is his Biographer — 
As long as he can blush, 
Perdition is Opprobrium; 

Past that, he sins in peace. 


Thief 


CII 


“T TEAVENLY Father,” take to thee 
A The supreme iniquity, 
Fashioned by thy candid hand 
In a moment contraband. 

Though to trust us seem to us 
More respectful — “we are dust.” 

We apologize to Thee 
For Thine own Duplicity. 


[298] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


CIII 



HE sweets of Pillage can be known 


A To no one but the Thief, 
Compassion for Integrity 
Is his divinest Grief. 


CIV 



HE Bible is an antique volume 


Written by faded men, 

At the suggestion of Holy Spectres — 
Subjects — Bethlehem — 

Eden — the ancient Homestead — 
Satan — the Brigadier, 

Judas — the great Defaulter, 

David — the Troubadour. 

Sin — a distinguished Precipice 
Others must resist, 

Boys that “believe” 

Are very lonesome — 

Other boys are “lost.” 

Had but the tale a warbling Teller 
All the boys would come — 

Orpheus’ sermon captivated, 

It did not condemn. 


[299] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


CV 

A LITTLE over Jordan, 

As Genesis record, 

An Angel and a Wrestler 
Did wrestle long and hard. 

Till, morning touching mountain, 
And Jacob waxing strong, 

The Angel begged permission 
To breakfast and return. 

" Not so,” quoth wily Jacob, 

And girt his loins anew, 

“ Until thou bless me, stranger! ” 
The which acceded to: 

Light swung the silver fleeces 
Peniel hills among, 

And the astonished Wrestler 
Found he had worsted God! 


CVI 


D UST is the only secret, 
Death the only one 
You cannot find out all about 
In his native town: 

Nobody knew his father, 
Never was a boy, 

Hadn't any playmates 
Or early history. 

[300] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


Industrious, laconic. 
Punctual, sedate. 
Bolder than a Brigand, 
Swifter than a Fleet, 
Builds like a bird too, 
Christ robs the next — 
Robin after robin 
Smuggled to rest! 


CVII 

"VIBITION cannot find him, 



ii Affection doesn’t know 
How many leagues of Nowhere 
Lie between them now. 
Yesterday undistinguished — 
Eminent to-day, 

For our mutual honor — 
Immortality! 


CVIII 

E DEN is that old-fashioned House 
We dwell in every day, 
Without suspecting our abode 
Until we drive away. 

How fair, on looking back, the Day 
We sauntered from the door, 
Unconscious our returning 
Discover it no more. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


CIX 


C ANDOR, my tepid Friend, 

Come not to play with me! 

The Myrrhs and Mochas of the Mind 
Are its Iniquity. 


CX 

S PEECH is a symptom of affection, 
And Silence one, 

The perfectest communication 
Is heard of none — 

Exists and its endorsement 
Is had within — 

Behold! said the Apostle, 

Yet had not seen. 


CXI 


W HO were “ the Father and the Son ” — 
We pondered when a child, 

And what had they to do with us — 

And when portentous told 
With inference appalling, 

By Childhood fortified, 

We thought, “ at least they are no worse 
Than they have been described.” 

[3 02 ] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


Who are “ the Father and the Son ” — 
Did we demand today, 

“ The Father and the Son ” himself 
Would doubtless specify, 

But had they the felicity 
When we desired to know, 

We better Friends had been, perhaps, 
Than time ensue to be. 

We start, to learn that we believe 
But once, entirely — 

Belief, it does not fit so well 
When altered frequently. 

We blush, that Heaven if we achieve, 
Event ineffable — 

We shall have shunned, until ashamed 
To own the Miracle. 


CXII 


T HAT Love is all there is, 

Is all we know of Love; 

It is enough, the freight should be 
Proportioned to the groove. 


>/ 


CXIII 

T HE luxury to apprehend 
The luxury’t would be 
To look at thee a single time, 
An Epicure of me, 

[303] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


In whatsoever Presence, makes, 
Till, for a further food 
I scarcely recollect to starve, 

So first am I supplied. 

The luxury to meditate 
The luxury it was 
To banquet on thy Countenance, 
A sumptuousness bestows 
On plainer days, 

Whose table, far as 
Certainty can see, 

Is laden with a single crumb — 
The consciousness of Thee. 


CXIV 

HE Sea said “ Come ” to the Brook, 



A The Brook said “ Let me grow! ” 
The Sea said “Then you will be a Sea — 
I want a brook, Come now! ” 


CXV 



LL I may, if small, 


1 A Do it not display 
Larger for its Totalness? 
’T is economy 
To bestow a world 
And withhold a star, 
Utmost is munificence; 
Less, though larger, Poor. 


[304] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


CXVI 

I OVE reckons by itself alone, 

^ “As large as I” relate the Sun 
To one who never felt it blaze, 

Itself is all the like it has. 


CXVII 

T HE inundation of the Spring 
Submerges every soul, 

It sweeps the tenement away 
But leaves the water whole. 

In which the Soul, at first alarmed. 
Seeks furtive for its shore, 

But acclimated, gropes no more 
For that Peninsular. 


CXVIII 

N O Autumn’s intercepting chill 
Appalls this Tropic Breast, 
But African exuberance 
And Asiatic Rest. 


CXIX 


V OLCANOES be in Sicily 
And South America, 

I judge from my geography. 
Volcanoes nearer here, 


[305] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


A lava step, at any time, 

Am I inclined to climb, 

A crater I may contemplate, 
Vesuvius at home. 


cxx 

D ISTANCE is not the realm of Fox, 
Nor by relay as Bird; 

Abated, Distance is until 
Thyself, Beloved! 


CXXI 


T HE treason of an accent 
Might vilify the Joy — 

To breathe, — corrode the rapture 
Of Sanctity to be. 


CXXII 


H OW destitute is he 

Whose Gold is firm, 
Who finds it every time, 

The small stale sum — 

When Love, with but a pence 
Will so display, 

As is a disrespect to India! 


[306] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


CXXIII 


C RISIS is sweet and, set of Heart 
Upon the hither side, 

Has dowers of prospective 
Surrendered by the Tried. 

Inquire of the closing Rose 
Which Rapture she preferred, 

And she will tell you, sighing, 

The transport of the Bud. 


CXXIV 


T O tell the beauty would decrease, 
To state the Spell demean, 

There is a syllableless sea 
Of which it is the sign. 

My will endeavours for its word 
And fails, but entertains 
A rapture as of legacies — 

Of introspective mines. 


CXXV 

T O love thee, year by year, 
May less appear 
Than sacrifice and cease. 
However, Dear, 

[307] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


Forever might be short 
I thought, to show, 

And so I pieced it with a flower now. 


CXXVI 

1 SHOWED her heights she never saw — 
“ Wouldst climb ?” I said, 

She said “ Not so” — 

“ With me?” I said, “ With me?” 

I showed her secrets 
Morning’s nest, 

The rope that Nights were put across — 
And now, “ Wouldst have me for a Guest?” 
She could not find her yes — 

And then, I brake my life, and Lo! 

A light for her, did solemn glow, 

The larger, as her face withdrew — 

And could she, further, “ No?” 


CXXVII 

O N my volcano grows the grass,— 
A meditative spot, 

An area for a bird to choose 
Would be the general thought. 

How red the fire reeks below, 

How insecure the sod — 

Did I disclose, would populate 
With awe my solitude. 


[308] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


CXXVIII 

T F I could tell how glad I was, 

I should not be so glad, 

But when I cannot make the Force 
Nor mould it into word, 

I know it is a sign 
That new Dilemma be 
From mathematics further off, 
Than from Eternity. 


CXXIX 


H ER Grace is all she has, 

And that, so vast displays, 
One Art, to recognize, must be, 
Another Art to praise. 


cxxx 


N O matter where the Saints abide, 
They make their circuit fair; 
Behold how great a Firmament 
Accompanies a star! 


CXXXI 


T O see her is a picture, 

To hear her is a tune, 

To know her an intemperance 
As innocent as June; 


[309] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


By which to be undone 
Is dearer than Redemption — 
Which never to receive, 
Makes mockery of melody 
It might have been to live. 


CXXXII 


S O set its sun in thee, 

What day is dark to me — 
What distance far, 

So I the ships may see 
That touch how seldomly 
Thy shore? 


CXXXIII 

H AD this one day not been, 
Or could it cease to be — 
How smitten, how superfluous 
Were every other day! 

Lest Love should value less 
What Loss would value more, 
Had it the stricken privilege — 
It cherishes before. 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


CXXXIV 


T HAT she forgot me was the least, 
I felt it second pain, 

That I was worthy to forget 
What most I thought upon. 

Faithful, was all that I could boast, 
But Constancy became, 

To her, by her innominate, 

A something like a shame. 


cxxxv 


HE incidents of Love 



JL Are more than its Events, 
Investments best expositor 
Is the minute per cents. 


CXXXVI 

LITTLE overflowing word 



That any hearing had inferred 
For ardor or for tears, 

Though generations pass away, 
Traditions ripen and decay, 

As eloquent appears. 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


CXXXVII 


J UST so, Jesus raps — He does not weary — 
Last at the knocker and first at the bell. 
Then on divinest tiptoe standing 
Might He out-spy the lady’s soul. 

When He retires, chilled and weary — 

It will be ample time for me; 

Patient, upon the steps, until then — 

Heart, I am knocking low at Thee! 


CXXXVIII 

OAFE Despair it is that raves, 
^ Agony is frugal, 

Puts itself severe away 
For its own perusal. 

Garrisoned no Soul can be 
In the front of Trouble, 

Love is one, not aggregate, 

Nor is Dying double. 


CXXXIX 


HE Face we choose to miss, 
Be it but for a day — 

As absent as a hundred years 
When it has rode away. 



[ 3 ! 2 ] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


CXL 

/^F so divine a loss 

We enter but the gain, 
Indemnity for loneliness 
That such a bliss has been. 


CXLI 


T HE healed Heart shows its shallow scar 
With confidential moan, 

Not mended by Mortality 
Are fabrics truly torn. 

To go its convalescent way 
So shameless is to see, 

More genuine were Perfidy 
Than such Fidelity. 


CXLII 


’ IVE little anguish 
f Lives will fret. 


Give avalanches — 

And they ’ll slant, 

Straighten, look cautious for their breath, 
But make no syllable — 

Like Death, 

Who only shows his 
Marble disc — 

Sublimer sort than speech. 


[3 I 3] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


CXLIII 


O pile like Thunder to its close, 



A Then crumble grand away, 
While everything created hid — 

This would be Poetry: 

Or Love, — the two coeval came — 
We both and neither prove, 
Experience either, and consume — 
For none see God and live. 


CXLIV 


HE Stars are old, that stood for me — 



A The West a little worn, 

Yet newer glows the only Gold 
I ever cared to earn — 

Presuming on that lone result 
Her infinite disdain, 

But vanquished her with my defeat, 
T was Victory was slain. 


CXLV 


LL circumstances are the frame 



AA. In which His Face is set, 
All Latitudes exist for His 
Sufficient continent. 


[314] 


THE SINGLE HOUND 


The light His Action and the dark 
The Leisure of His Will, 

In Him Existence serve, or set 
A force illegible. 


CXLVI 

1 DID not reach thee, 

But my feet slip nearer every day; 
Three Rivers and a Hill to cross, 

One Desert and a Sea — 

I shall not count the journey one 
When I am telling thee. 

Two deserts — but the year is cold 
So that will help the sand — 

One desert crossed, the second one 
Will feel as cool as land. 

Sahara is too little price 
To pay for thy Right hand! 

The sea comes last. Step merry, feet! 
So short have we to go 
To play together we are prone, 

But we must labor now, 

The last shall be the lightest load 
That we have had to draw. 

The Sun goes crooked — that is night — 

Before he makes the bend 

We must have passed the middle sea, 

[3^] 


POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON 


Almost we wish the end 

Were further off-—too great it seems 

So near the Whole to stand. 

We step like plush, we stand like snow — 
The waters murmur now, 

Three rivers and the hill are passed. 

Two deserts and the sea! 

Now Death usurps my premium 
And gets the look at Thee. 


[316] 


INDEX OF FIRST LINES 


A 

A bird came down the walk: . . . . 

A cap of lead across the sky. 

A charm invests a face. 

A clock stopped — not the mantel’s; . 
A death-blow is a life-blow to some 
A deed knocks first at thought, . . . . 

A dew sufficed itself . 

.Adrift! a little boat adrift!. 

A drop fell on the apple tree, . . . . 

Adventure most unto itself. 

A face devoid of love or grace, . . . . 
Afraid? Of whom am I afraid? . . . 

After a hundred years. 

Ah, Teneriffe! Retreating Mountain! 

A lady red upon the hill. 

A light exists in spring. 

A little madness in the Spring . . . . 

A little overflowing word. 

A little over Jordan, . 

A little road not made of man, . . . . 
All circumstances are the frame . . . 

All I may, if small,. 

All overgrown by cunning moss, . . . 
A long, long sleep, a famous sleep . . 

Alter? When the hills do. 

Ambition cannot find him,. 

A modest lot, a fame petite, . 

Ample make this bed. 

A murmur in the trees to note, . . . . 
An altered look about the hills; . . . 
A narrow fellow in the grass . . . . . 
An awful tempest mashed the air, . . 

An everywhere of silver,. 

Angels in the early morning. 

A poor torn heart, a tattered heart, . . 
Apparently with no surprise . . . . . 
A precious, mouldering pleasure ’t is . 
A prompt, executive Bird is the Jay, . 
Arcturus is his other name,— • • • • 

[317] 


PAGE 

91 
2 77 
163 

249 
204 

37 

135 

246 

113 

257 

54 

193 

225 

269 
128 
127 

270 
3 ii 

300 

113 

314 

304 

250 

251 
145 

301 
70 

214 

130 

80 

9 i 

90 

90 

119 

28 

122 

7 

282 

89 









































INDEX OF FIRST LINES 


PAGE 

Are friends delight or pain?. 60 

A route of evanescence .. 86 

As by the dead we love to sit,.207 

As children bid the guest good-night,.118 

A sepal, petal, and a thorn.132 

As far from pity as complaint,.232 

A shady friend for torrid days. 34 

Ashes denote that fire was;. 60 

A sickness of this world it most occasions.239 

As if some little Arctic flower,.149 

As imperceptibly as grief.103 

A sloop of amber slips away.14° 

A solemn thing it was, I said,.176 

A something in a summer’s day,.114 

A spider sewed at night. 94 

At half-past three a single bird. 76 

A thought went up my mind to-day. 27 

A throe upon the features.223 

At last to be identified!.196 

At least to pray is left, is left.203 

A toad can die of light!.250 

A train went through a burial gate,.185 

A triumph may be of several kinds.210 

A word is dead . 49 

A wounded deer leaps highest,. 6 


B 

Beauty crowds me till I die,. 

Because I could not stop for Death, . 

Before I got my eye put out,. 

Before the ice is in the pools, .... 
Before you thought of spring, .... 

Belshazzar had a letter, —. 

Bereaved of all, I went abroad, . . . 
Besides the Autumn poets sing, .... 
Blazing in gold and quenching in purple, 
Bless God, he went as soldiers, .... 
Bloom upon the Mountains, stated, . . 
Bring me the sunset in a cup, .... 


272 

194 

35 

245 

80 

16 

237 

105 

102 


234 

274 

100 


C 


Candor, my tepid Friend, .302 

Come slowly, Eden! .156 

Could I but ride indefinite,.136 

Could mortal lip divine. 52 

Crisis is sweet and, set of Heart.307 


[318] 












































INDEX OF FIRST LINES 


D 

Dare you see a soul at the white heat? 

Dear March, come in!. 

Death is a dialogue between .... 

Death is like the insect. 

Death sets a thing significant . . . 
Delayed till she had ceased to know, 

Delight becomes pictorial. 

Departed to the judgment,. 

Did the harebell loose her girdle . . 
Distance is not the realm of Fox, . . 
Doubt me, my dim companion! . . . 
Down Time’s quaint stream .... 

Drab habitation of whom?. 

Dropped into the Ether Acre! . . . 

Drowning is not so pitiful. 

Dust is the only secret,. 


PAGE 


20 

129 

196 

230 

208 

181 
26 

182 
162 
306 
146 
266 


139 

286 

50 

300 


E 

Each life converges to some centre .... 
Each that we lose takes part of us; ... 

Eden is that old-fashioned House .... 

Elijah’s wagon knew no thill,. 

Elysium is as far as to. 

Essential oils are wrung:. 

Except the heaven had come so near, . . . 
Except the smaller size, no Lives are round, 

Except to heaven, she is nought;. 

Exhilaration is the Breeze. 

Experiment to me . 

Exultation is the going. 


34 

231 

301 

295 

146 

215 

33 

257 

196 

260 

32 

184 


F 

Faith is a fine invention. 

Fame is a fickle food. 

Far from love the Heavenly Father 
Farther in summer than the birds, 
Fate slew him, but he did not drop; 
Father, I bring thee not myself,— 
Few get enough,—enough is one; 
Finite to fail, but infinite to venture 

Follow wise Orion. 

Forbidden fruit a flavor has . . • 

For Death,—or rather. 

For each ecstatic instant. 

[ 319 ] 



32 

257 

251 

102 

60 
172 

56 

61 
283 

49 

285 

22 










































INDEX OF FIRST LINES 


PAGE 


Forever cherished be the tree,.281 

Frequently the woods are pink,. 98 

From all the jails the boys and girls. 56 

From cocoon forth a butterfly. 79 

From us she wandered now a year,.236 


G 

Give little anguish. 

Given in marriage unto thee,. 

Glee! the great storm is over!. 

Glory is the bright tragic thing,. 

Glowing is her Bonnet,. 

God gave a loaf to every bird,. 

God made a little gentian;. 

God permits industrious angels. 

Going to heaven!. 

Going to him! Happy letter! Tell him — 
Good night! which put the candle out ? . . 
Great streets of silence led away. 


313 

228 


5 

263 

280 

3i 

105 

189 

202 


159 

37 

223 


H 

Had this one day not been,.310 

Have you got a brook in your little heart,.149 

Heart not so heavy as mine,. 40 

Heart, we will forget him!.172 

He ate and drank the precious words,. 14 

Heaven is what I cannot reach!. .... 49 

“ Heavenly Father,” take to thee.298 

He fumbles at your spirit.171 

He preached upon “ breadth ” till it argued him narrow, — . 36 

He put the belt around my life, —.165 

Her final summer was it,.217 

Her Grace is all she has,.309 

Her “ Last Poems ” —.292 

He touched me, so I live to know. 174 

High from the earth I heard a bird;.132 

His bill an auger is,.135 

His Cheek is his Biographer —. 298 

His mind, of man a secret makes,.264 

Hope is a subtle glutton;. 48 

Hope is the thing with feathers. 19 

How dare the robins sing,.230 

How destitute is he.306 

How happy is the little stone. 97 

How many times these low feet staggered,.186 

How still the bells in steeples stand,. 51 

How the old mountains drip with sunset.141 

[320] 












































INDEX OF FIRST LINES 


I 

I bet with every Wind that blew, till Nature in chagrin . . . 

I breathed enough to learn the trick, . 

I bring an unaccustomed wine. 

I cannot live with you,. 

I can’t tell you, but you feel it—. 

I can wade grief,. 

I did not reach thee,. 

I died for beauty, but was scarce. 

I dreaded that first robin so,. 

I envy seas whereon he rides,. 

If anybody’s friend be dead,. 

I felt a cleavage in my mind. 

I felt a funeral in my brain,. 

If I can stop one heart from breaking,. 

If I could tell how glad I was,. 

If I may have it when it’s dead. 

If I should die,. 

If I shouldn’t be alive. 

I fit for them, . 

I found the phrase to every thought. 

If pain for peace prepares,. 

If recollecting were forgetting,. 

If the foolish call them “ flowers,”. 

If tolling bell I ask the cause. 

If what we could were what we would—. 

If you were coming in the fall,. 

I gained it so,. 

I gave myself to him,. 

I had a daily bliss. 

I had a guinea golden;... 

I had been hungry all the years;. 

I had no cause to be awake,. 

I had no time to hate, because. 

I have a king who does not speak;. 

I have no life but this,. 

I have not told my garden yet,. 

I heard a fly buzz when I died;. 

I held a jewel in my fingers. 

I hide myself within my flower,. 

I know a place where summer strives. 

I know some lonely houses off the road .. 

I know that he exists. 

I like a look of agony,. 

I like to see it lap the miles,. 

I lived on dread; to those who know. 

I live with him, I see his face;. 

[321] 


PAGE 

266 

243 

17 

150 

271 

21 


315 

185 

85 

175 

212 


57 

238 

6 

309 

244 

216 


199 

290 

19 

289 

58 

5 i 

244 
260 

147 
43 

159 

64 

54 

42 

212 

15 

63 

157 

205 

245 

165 

148 


45 

186 

25 

216 


174 















































INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

PAGE 

I ’ll tell you how the sun rose, —.121 

I lost a world the other day.199 

I many times thought peace had come,. 4 ° 

I’m ceded, I ’ve stopped being theirs;.153 

I meant to find her when I came;.238 

I meant to have but modest needs,. 23 

I measure every grief I meet. 61 

Immortal is an ample word.234 

Immured in Heaven! What a Cell!.293 

I’m nobody! Who are you?. 17 

I’m thinking of that other morn,.293 

I’m wife; I’ve finished that,.155 

I never heard the word “ escape ”. 22 

I never lost as much but twice,.201 

I never saw a moor,.188 

I never told the buried gold.273. 

In lands I never saw, they say,.164 

I noticed people disappeared,.211 

In winter, in my room,.284 

I read my sentence steadily,.204 

I reason, earth is short,.192 

Is bliss, then, such abyss . 70 

I see thee better in the dark,.288 

I send two Sunsets —.278 

I shall know why, when time is over,.200 

Is Heaven a physician?. 27 

I should have been too glad, I see,. 29 

I should not dare to leave my friend,.222 

I showed her heights she never saw —.308 

I sing to use the waiting,.239 

I started early, took my dog,. 88 

I stepped from plank to plank. 71 

I taste a liquor never brewed,. 14 

It can’t be summer, — that got through;.104 

It dropped so low in my regard. 63 

I think just how my shape will rise.224 

I think that the root of the Wind is Water,.276 

I think the hemlock likes to stand.125 

It makes no difference abroad,.120 

It might be easier. 69 

I took my power in my hand. 33 

It’s all I have to bring to-day .144 

It sifts from leaden sieves,.106 

It’s like the light, — .134 

It sounded as if the streets were running,. 97 

It’s such a little thing to weep,. 50 

It struck me every day.248 


[322] 

















































INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

It tossed and tossed, —. 

It was not death, for I stood up,. 

It was too late for man,. 

I’ve got an arrow here;. 

I’ve seen a dying eye. 

I watched her face to see which way .... 

I went to heaven, —. 

I went to thank her,. 

I wish I knew that woman’s name,. 

I wonder if the sepulchre. 

I worked for chaff and earning wheat . . . 
I years had been from home,. 


PAGE 

30 

221 

197 

171 

188 

288 

208 

187 

237 

244 

65 

44 


Just lost when I was saved! . 47 

Just so, Jesus raps — He does not weary—.312 

L 

Lay this laurel on the one.225 

Let down the bars, O Death!.201 

Let me not mar that perfect dream.174 

Life, and Death, and Giants. 65 

Lightly stepped a yellow star.279 

Like brooms of steel .283 

Like Men and Women shadows walk.272 

Like mighty footlights burned the red.101 

Like some old-fashioned miracle.279 

Like trains of cars on tracks of plush.116 

Look back on time with kindly eyes,.185 

Love is anterior to life,.167 

Love reckons by itself alone,.305 

Low at my problem bending, .289 


M 

March is the month of expectation, .... 

Me! Come! My dazzled face. 

Mine by the right of the white election! . . 

Mine enemy is growing old,—. 

Morning is the place for dew,. 

“ Morning ” means “ Milking ” to the Farmer 

Morns like these we parted;. 

Much madness is divinest sense. 

Musicians wrestle everywhere: . 

My cocoon tightens, colors tease,. 

My country need not change her gown, . . . 
My friend mast be a bird,. 

[323] 


27s 

236 


145 


38 

131 

270 

203 

9 


46 

184 

32 

173 










































INDEX OF FIRST LINES 


PAGE 

My life closed twice before its close;. 5 2 

My nosegays are for captives; . 74 

My river runs to thee:.150 

My Wheel is in the dark,—.262 

My worthiness is all my doubt,.166 


N 

Nature is what we see,. 

Nature rarer uses yellow. 

Nature, the gentlest mother,. 

New feet within my garden go, .... 
No Autumn’s intercepting chill . . . 
No brigadier throughout the year . . 
No matter where the Saints abide, . . 

No other can reduce. 

No rack can torture me,. 

No romance sold unto, . 

Not any higher stands the grave . . . 

Not any sunny tone. 

Not in this world to see his face . . . 
Not knowing when the dawn will come 
Not one by Heaven defrauded stay, 

Not when we know. 

Not with a club the heart is broken, . 


268 

96 

75 

108 


305 

107 

309 

261 

198 

260 

232 

285 

191 

130 

290 

295 

173 


O 

Of all the souls that stand create. 

Of all the sounds despatched abroad, . . . 

Of bronze and blaze. 

Of Death the sharpest function,.. 

Of so divine a loss.. 

Of this is Day composed—. 

Of tribulation these are they. 

One blessing had I, than the rest. 

One day is there of the series.. 

One dignity delays for all,. 

One need not be a chamber to be haunted, — 
One of the ones that Midas touched, . . . 

One sister have I in our house, . 

On my volcano grows the grass, — ... 

On such a night, or such a night,. 

On the bleakness of my lot. 

On this long storm the rainbow rose, . . . 

On this wondrous sea,. 

Our journey had advanced;. 

Our lives are Swiss,—. 

Our share of night to bear,. 


156 

122 

140 

266 


313 


278 
224 
107 
71 
181 
218 


83 

256 

308 

214 

59 


183 


253 

213 

65 


3 


[324] 












































INDEX OF FIRST LINES 


P PAGE 

Pain has an element of blank;. 

Papa above! Regard a Mouse.295 

Perception of an Object costs.261 

Perhaps you’d like to buy a flower? n 0 

Peril as a possession.258 

Pigmy seraphs gone astray,. I ' [ 82 

Pink, small, and punctual. I0 8 

Pompless no life can pass away; *.211 

Poor little heart!. iy 0 

Portraits are to daily faces. 33 

Prayer is the little implement. 45 

Presentment is that long shadow on the lawn.118 

Proud of my broken heart since thou didst break it, ... . 166 

R 

Read, sweet, how others strove,. 13 

“ Remember me,” implored the Thief —.296 

Remembrance has a rear and front, —. 66 

Remorse is memory awake,. 38 

Reverse cannot befall the fine Prosperity.259 

S 

Safe Despair it is that raves,.312 

Safe in their alabaster chambers, .182 

She died at play,.269 

She died, — this was the way she died;.218 

She laid her docile crescent down,.233 

She rose to his requirement, dropped.155 

She slept beneath a tree.127 

She sweeps with many-colored brooms,.101 

She went as quiet as the dew. 195 

Sleep is supposed to be,.200 

So bashful when I spied her,.119 

So, from the mould.276 

Softened by Time’s consummate plush,. 72 

So gay a flower bereaved the mind.263 

Some Days retired from the rest.271 

Some keep the Sabbath going to church;.no 

Some rainbow coming from the fair!.in 

Some things that fly there be,—. 10 

Some, too fragile for winter winds, . ..207 

So proud she was to die. 2 4 ° 

So set its sun in thee, .. 3 *o 

Soul, wilt thou toss again? . 4 

South winds jostle them. 99 

“ Sown in dishonor ? ” . 2 9o 


[325] 










































INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

PAGE 

Speech is a symptom of affection,.302 

Split the lark and you ’ll find the music,.169 

Step lightly on this narrow spotl.203 

Success is counted sweetest. 3 

Summer begins to have the look,.282 

Summer for thee grant I may be.168 

Superfluous were the sun.240 

Superiority to fate . 48 

Surgeons must be very careful. 25 

Sweet hours have perished here;.235 

Sweet is the swamp with its secret,.135 

T 

Taken from men this morning,.220 

Talk with prudence to a beggar. 36 

That I did always love,.148 

That is solemn we have ended, —.227 

That Love is all there is,.303 

That she forgot me was the least,.311 

That short, potential stir .187 

That such have died enables us.228 

The bat is dun with wrinkled wings.137 

The bee is not afraid of me,.in 

The Bible is an antique volume.299 

The blunder is to estimate,—.261 

The body grows outside, —. 39 

The bone that has no marrow;. 67 

The brain is wider than the sky,. 67 

The brain within its groove. 16 

The bustle in a house.IQ2 

The butterfly obtains.272 

The butterfly’s assumption-gown,.121 

The clouds their backs together laid,.188 

The cricket sang,.139 

The daisy follows soft the sun,.198 

The day came slow, till five o’clock,. 77 

The Devil, had he fidelity,. 294 

The difference between despair .264 

The distance that the dead have gone.229 

The Duties of the Wind are few.275 

The dying need but little, dear,—.241 

The Face we choose to miss,.312 

The farthest thunder that I heard. 58 

The feet of people walking home.291 

The Future never spoke, .267 

The gentian weaves her fringes,.104 

The gleam of an heroic act,.265 

[ 3 2 6 ] 















































INDEX OF FIRST LINES 


The grass so little has to do, —. 

The grave my little cottage is,. 

The healed Heart shows its shallow scar . 

The heart asks pleasure first,. 

The Hills erect their purple heads, . . . 

The incidents of Love . 

The inundation of the Spring. 

Their height in heaven comforts not, . . . 

The largest fire ever known. 

The last night that she lived,.. 

The leaves, like women, interchange . . . 

The long sigh of the Frog. 

The Look of Thee, what is it like? . . . . 

The luxury to apprehend. 

The missing All prevented me. 

The moon is distant from the sea, . . . . 

The Moon upon her fluent route. 

The moon was but a chin of gold . . . . 
The morns are meeker than they were, . . 

The mountain sat upon the plain. 

The murmuring of bees has ceased; ... 

The murmur of a bee. 

The mushroom is the elf of plants, . . . . 
The nearest dream recedes, unrealized . . 
The night was wide, and furnished scant . 
The Ones that disappeared are back, . . . 
The one that could repeat the summer day 

The only ghost I ever saw. 

The overtakelessness of those. 

The past is such a curious creature, . . . 

The pedigree of honey. 

The props assist the house. 

The rat is the concisest tenant. 

There came a day at summer’s full . . . . 

There came a wind like a bugle;. 

There is a flower that bees prefer, . . . . 

There is another Loneliness. 

There is a shame of nobleness. 

There is a solitude of space,. 

There is a word. 

There is no frigate like a book. 

There’s a certain slant of light, ..... 
There’s been a death in the opposite house 
There’s something quieter than sleep . . 

The reticent volcano keeps. 

The right to perish might be thought . . . 
The robin is the one. 

[327] 


PAGE 
. II2 

• 235 

• 313 

7 

. 278 

• 3ii 

• 305 

. 209 
. 274 
. 190 

. 96 

. 2 77 

. 294 

• 303 

. 263 
. 164 

. 279 

• 137 

. 124 

. 120 

. 142 
. 109 

. 92 

. 18 

. 161 
. 281 
. 95 

. 206 

• 293 

. 68 
. no 
. 265 
. 98 

• 152 

• 93 
. 117 

. 262 

. 210 
. 265 
. 170 

• 53 
. 125 
. 247 

. 242 

• 57 
. 258 

• 78 


















































INDEX OF FIRST LINES 


The rose did caper on her cheek,. 

These are the days that Reindeer love .... 
These are the days when birds come back, . . 

The Sea said “ Come ” to the Brook,. 

The show is not the show,. 

The skies can’t keep their secret!. 

The sky is low, the clouds are mean,. 

The soul selects her own society, . 

The soul should always stand ajar,. 

The Soul’s superior instants. 

The Soul that has a Guest,. 

The Soul unto itself . 

The spider as an artist. 

The springtime’s pallid landscape. 

The Stars are old, that stood for me— .... 

The stimulus, beyond the grave. 

The suburbs of a secret. 

The sun just touched the morning;. 

The sun kept setting, setting still;. 

The sweets of Pillage can be known. 

The thought beneath so slight a film. 

The treason of an accent. 

The way I read a letter’s this:. 

The wind began to rock the grass. 

The Winds drew off .. 

The wind tapped like a tired man,.. 

They dropped like flakes, they dropped like stars, 

They say that “ time assuages,” —. 

They won’t frown always, — some sweet day . 

This is my letter to the world, . 

This is the land the sunset washes,. 

This merit hath the worst,—. 

This quiet Dust was Gentlemen and Ladies, 

This was in the white of the year,.. 

This world is not conclusion;. 

Those final Creatures, — who they are — ... 
Though I get home how late, how late! . . . . 
Three weeks passed since I had seen her, — . . 
Through lane it lay, through bramble, . . . . 
Through the straight pass of suffering .... 

Tie the strings to my life, my Lord,. 

’T is an honorable thought,. 

’T is little I could care for pearls. 

’T is so much joy! ’T is so much joy! . . . . 

’T is sunrise, little maid, hast thou. 

’T is whiter than an Indian pipe,. 

Title divine is mine. 

To be alive is power,.. 


PAGE 

163 

283 

123 

304 

26 

86 


124 
9 
242 
268 
257 
25 
133 
126 


314 

228 

264 


77 

193 

299 


24 

306 

160 


99 

276 

95 

206 

226 

228 

2 

116 

4i 

286 

235 

226 

281 

28 


243 

297 

23 

241 

229 

48 

4 

231 

233 

1/6 

259 


[328] 


















































INDEX OF FIRST LINES 


To-day or this noon . 

To fight aloud is very brave,. 

To hang our head ostensibly,. 

To hear an oriole sing. 

To help our bleaker parts. 

To know just how he suffered would be dear; 

To learn the transport by the pain,. 

To lose one’s faith surpasses. 

To lose thee, sweeter than to gain. 

To love thee, year by year,. 

To make a prairie it takes a clover. 

To my quick ear the leaves conferred; . . . 

Too cold is this. 

To pile the Thunder to its close,. 

To see her is a picture,. 

To tell the beauty would decrease,. 

To the staunch Dust we safe commit thee; . 

To this apartment deep. 

To venerate the simple days. 

’T was a long parting, but the time. 

’T was comfort in her dying room. 

’T was just this time last year I died, .... 

’T was later when the summer went. 

’T was such a little, little boat. 

Two butterflies went out at noon. 

Two lengths has every day,. 

Two swimmers wrestled on the spar .... 

U 

Undue significance a starving man attaches . 

Unto my books so good to turn. 

Upon the gallows hung a wretch,. 

V 

Victory comes late,. 

Volcanoes be in Sicily. 


PAGE 

288 

12 

66 

83 

68 

189 

43 

64 

169 

307 

134 

131 

287 

314 

309 

307 

292 

296 

50 

154 

287 

252 

123 


267 

194 


39 

4 i 

56 


30 

305 


W 

Wait till the majesty of Death.219 

Water is taught by thirst; .248 

We cover thee, sweet face .227 

We learn in the retreating.226 

We like March, his shoes are purple,. 130 

We never know how high we are . 53 

We never know we go, — when we are going.248 

Went up a year this evening!.219 

We outgrow love like other things. *73 

We play at paste. 

[329] 












































INDEX OF FIRST LINES 



We should not mind so small a flower,.291 

We spy the Forests and the Hills,.273 

We thirst at first, — ’t is Nature’s act;.249 

What if I say I shall not wait?.166 

What inn is this .221 

What mystery pervades a well!.133 

What soft, cherubic creatures. 63 

When Etna basks and purrs,.258 

When I hoped I feared,. 37 

When I was small, a woman died.197 

When night is almost done,. 12 

When roses cease to bloom, dear,.168 

Where every bird is bold to go,.234 

Where ships of purple gently toss.102 

Whether my bark went down to sea,. 15 

While I was fearing it, it came,. 53 

Who has not found the heaven below. 54 

Who is it seeks my pillow nights?.298 

Who never lost, are unprepared. 21 

Who never wanted, — maddest joy. 69 

Who robbed the woods,. 87 

“ Whose are the little beds,” I asked,. 81 

Who were “ the Father and the Son ” —.302 

Wild nights! Wild nights!.161 

Will there really be a morning?. 76 

Witchcraft has not a pedigree,.259 

Within my reach! . 6 


Y 

You cannot put a fire out;. 69 

You left me, sweet, two legacies, — .145 

Your riches taught me poverty.157 

You’ve seen balloons set, haven’t you?.138 


[330] 


























































































































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